This shows how you can be taken for a ride by ecommerce sites like Flipkart and anti-virus / Internet security firm ESET.

Flipkart had an offer for ESET Smart Security. It offered one extra year of subscription to ESET if the product was purchased before October 31.

I bought the product on October 31, and Flipkart shipped it on the same day. But when the product got activated only for one year instead of two, I contacted ESET. Their response was that the product must have been ‘activated’ by October 31. But as you can see, Flipkart did not say anything about ‘activation’.

As you can see, even the shipment email mentions the ‘offer’.

This is ESET’s response to my email:

I have now replied to ESET and have also contacted Flipkart. I have also tweeted them ( at @flipkart and @eset_india ) I am now awaiting the response.

Let’s see…ESET may activate it for one more year or Flipkart may refund the amount. What they do will be the subject of another blog post.

I am writing this so that you can be careful while buying products – either online or offline.