Month: December 2013

Passive Income Report – Oct 2013

Here is the income report for october 2013. Money from amazon india & flipkart has been converted from INR to USD to make it easier to compare.

  1. Amazon (US) : $33.54
  2. Amazon (IN) :   $0.785
  3. Flipkart         :    $24.292
  4. CPMSTAR   :    $7.10
  5. CPMFUN    :    $0.03
  6. Adversal     :    $11.29
  7. Adfly            :     $0.64
  8. Smowtion  :    $0.59
  9. CJ               :   $0
  10.   Linkshare  :  $0
  11.   Shareasale : $0
  12.   Prosperent  : $0.23

Total Earnings :  $78.5

The so called online .net sale – Bigrock Big Failure

I received this email around 8.30 yesterday from bigrock.

bigrock-1-day-promo

I was thinking of purchasing some domains (around 30) few months down the road but seeing the offer I thought I should purchase them now itself as the offer was too good. But to make sure that it wasn’t limited to just a 1 off purchase as is routine with such offers I checked the email properly to find any fine prints. There was none mentioned in the email. Promptly I went off to the site and there also it wasn’t mentioned anywhereanywhere. Not even a traditional ‘*’ which denotes there is some fine prints somewhere. I thought this time they are really allowing as many as possible as they are already giving .net for Rs.299. So I promptly transferred Rs. 7000/- to my account and started adding domains to the cart. But once I added more than 2 domains, it wasn’t applying the coupon. From the previous gosf sale, I know that bigrock doesn’t allow the coupons to be applied to more than 2 items in the cart so I had to purchase multiple hosting account by ordering it twice. So I thought I will do the same and once I purchased 4 domains (2 at a time), for the next 2 domains I got this message out of the blue.

Coupon Per User Limit Exceeded.

Now I wasn’t really expecting this. So I opted for chat support and the person there told me that Mr. Pratik Sane will be contacting me soon regarding this. I waited for few hours but didn’t got any call. So I went to chat again and this is what happened this time.

—————————————-

Department: Sales
Full Name: Alok
Email: harmonyinfotech@gmail.com
Please keep your query ready while we connect you to our sales team.
Staff: Dhiren R


17:37:02 Please keep your query ready while we connect you to our sales team.
17:37:02 Please wait, an operator will be with you shortly.
17:37:22 You are now chatting with Dhiren R – Sales
17:37:22 Dhiren R: Hello, Welcome to BigRock Sales Chat, How may I help you?
17:38:10 Alok: Hi. I wanted to purchase .net domains for the current sale but it is not letting me purchase more than 4 domains. There wasn’t any limit mentioned in the mailer sent.
17:38:42 Alok: I already chatted with support few hours back and Mr. Pratik Sane was supposed to contact me but I haven’t received any calls yet.
17:38:47 Dhiren R: hpw many domains do you want to purchase?
17:39:04 Alok: around 20-30
17:40:08 Dhiren R: i dont know wat the issue is exactly
17:40:14 Dhiren R: you will hjave to keep trying
17:40:23 Dhiren R: there is no such limit
17:40:51 Alok: There is a limit. The message is currently coming “Coupon Per User Limit Exceeded.”
17:41:17 Dhiren R: then you cannot purchase any more
17:41:19 Alok: Moreover it doesn’t allow to apply the coupon to more than 2 domains at a time.
17:41:50 Alok: If there was any limit then it should have been mentioned in the email or site.
17:42:21 Dhiren R has left the conversation. Click here to leave a message.
17:42:25 Dhiren R has left the conversation. Click here to leave a message.
17:42:27 Dhiren R has left the conversation. Click here to leave a message.

—————————————————————

You see, Mr. Dhiren just ran away. So I just went on chat again.

————————————————————-

Department: Sales
Full Name: Alok
Email: harmonyinfotech@gmail.com
Please keep your query ready while we connect you to our sales team.

Staff: Sonu Kumar


17:47:12 Please keep your query ready while we connect you to our sales team.
17:47:12 Please wait, an operator will be with you shortly.
17:47:18 You are now chatting with Sonu Kumar – Sales
17:47:18 Sonu Kumar: Hello, Welcome to BigRock Sales Chat, How may I help you?
17:47:19 You are now chatting with Sonu Kumar – Sales
17:48:10 Alok: I want to purchase .net domains for the current sale but it isn’t letting me purchase more than 4 domains. There isn’t any such limits mentioned on the site or the mailer sent to the email.
17:49:27 Sonu Kumar: Yes you can only purchase 1 domain on that offer
17:50:47 Alok: Do you guys really know about the offer. I already purchased 4 domains under it. Anyway if there was any limit then why it isn’t mentioned anywhere on the site or in the email sent to us.
17:52:11 Sonu Kumar: Please give me a moment…
17:55:16 Alok: ok
17:57:39 Sonu Kumar: Yes I just confirmed
17:57:49 Sonu Kumar: you cant purchase more than 4 domains on offer
17:58:29 Alok: Then the limit should have been mentioned on email and on site.
17:58:33 Alok: Why it wasn’t mentioned anywhere?
17:59:03 Alok: Moreover I have already transferred the amount to my account.
17:59:07 Sonu Kumar: Its on a discount offer. not everything is mentioned on offers.
18:00:11 Alok: Come on. Don’t you think it is lying to customer when you claim that the .net is available for 199 and don’t even mention the limit per customer anywhere.
18:05:28 Sonu Kumar: Sorry Alok I dont think. Companies come out with offer of .com for 99 and 109 . Have you ever read beneath the advertisement that its just a one time offer.
18:06:04 Sonu Kumar: Companies tale loss when they provide you a domain name worth Rs 549 just for Rs 199
18:06:12 Sonu Kumar: Hence there is always a limit
18:07:07 Alok: But all of them do mention the limit somewhere. They don’t just expect the customer to just assume that there will be some fineprints.
18:08:00 Alok: I know that companies take loss but you will make it up in the next few years. But my concern is why it isn’t disclosed on the site. Even now it just says “Special Offer! A discount coupon valid only for this session has been added to your cart.

Get .NET at just Rs.199 today!”
18:08:29 Alok: Not even an * which will denote that there is some fine-print somewhere.
18:09:46 Sonu Kumar: I am really sorry for the inconvenience cause Alok. I would request you to call up on my toll free number: 1-800-200-7625 and You can directly speak to your account manager regarding this.
18:09:55 Sonu Kumar: Iam sure he will be of some help to you
18:10:03 Sonu Kumar: Thank you for your time
18:10:27 Alok: ok

———————————————————

So this time I was told that there is a limit in place but I wonder why it isn’t mentioned anywhere on the site. So I started going through the links on bigrock.in but didn’t find any such limit being mentioned.

I wonder why they haven’t mentioned the limit whereas it is a standard practice to mention it clearly if there are any such in place. For eg. check out the http://www.bigrock.in/deals-on-domains . It is clearly mentioned

“Terms & Conditions :
This is an exclusive one time use offer, valid on your shopping cart, that offers a single .COM domain name at Rs 99. Any additional domain names will need to be purchased at the price mentioned on the BigRock site for a .COM domain name-(www.bigrock.in).This Discount cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or promotions. After the initial purchase term, the domain name will renew at the then appropriate renewal price listed on the BigRock site. BigRock reserves the right to deny use of this offer and/or cancel domains purchased using this offer if the offer is abused or used fraudulently, as determined by BigRock in its sole discretion.”