Lazada delivers a damaged-battery laptop, not support client to return or exchange

The laptop listed on Lazada's website

P.H.Binh (Hoang Mai district, Hanoi) told VIR that he bought a Dell Latitude E6410 laptop on Lazada in early April under the order ID 200613023746147. He spent VND3.89 million ($171.4) on this item, which is VND1 million ($44) cheaper than the selling price in other stores.

However, when he received the laptop, after short use, he realised that the keyboard was stuck and cannot type while the battery has been almost completely dead. A full charge could power the laptop for only 15 minutes and the machine would be very hot throughout the time.

Binh immediately contacted the customer department of Lazada to ask for a refund or exchange, but was not supported, although the website promises to: “Return or exchange items easily within 14 days, even if you simply do not like the product.”

He has tried to return the item in two ways, by contacting Lazada to send an employee to take the laptop and to send it by post. However, Lazada did not send anybody to take the item and did not send him their postal address for delivery to send it via post.

Meanwhile, Lazada’s warehouse is located in Bac Ninh province, 30 kilometres from Hanoi.

“I asked for a refund or exchange nearly a month ago. I talked to them more than ten times by chatting or calling but I have only been told to “Please wait for 48 hours”—and nobody contacted me since then. Now I know this service (return/exchange services) does not work and 48-hour reply is a scam. Are there any other ways to get a refund or an exchange?”

The case is not good at a time when Lazada is celebrating its six years' anniversary in Vietnam.

Messages between Binh and Lazada's customer care

Looking on the website of Lazada, it can be seen that information on numerous items is very ambiguous, as customers cannot know if they are new or used and how long the warranty period is. There are some comments at the bottom of the website, but the cheap prices draw most customers’ attention.

Thus, the Vietnam Competition Authority should quickly finish its on-going investigations and announce the conclusions so that customers can be in the clear about what they face with Lazada in order to ensure fairness and transparency in online shopping.

The number of complaints making it to news should be a wake up call for Lazada to radically re-invent its business practices, as well as improve the quality of goods and services on its platform if they want to operate in Vietnam for a long time.