You might have wondered if the huge discounts of 70% and 80% being offered on Chinese e-commerce sites were for real. A customer in Lucknow has alleged that Club Factory has been selling fake goods. This customer, Alok Kakkad, has now lodged a complaint against the company and its top executives under Sections 420 and 406 of the IPC for cheating and breach of trust by selling fake products of well-known brands.
Kakkad had seen Club Factory offering 86% discount of Titan Watches and 90% discount on Ray-Ban glasses. He ordered one item in each of these and the packet arrived on November 25. When he opened the packets, he found both the products were duplicates. His efforts to contact the customer care at Club Factory failed. He then established contact with Titan and Ray-Ban to know if they had sold these products. The companies denied they have ever had any business association with Club Factory.
Armed with these inputs, Kakkad has now registered a compliant at the Wazirganj, Lucknow police station naming Future Times Technology India Private Limited, the company that reportedly runs the Club Factory website. The FIR has the names of two directors of the company, Jialun Li and Garvit Aggarwal, its CFO Ashwini Rastogi and Club Factory's grievance officer for offences under Sections 420, 406, 506 and 120-B of the IPC dealing with fraud, criminal conspiracy and criminal intimidation.
The criminal intimidation charge under Section 506 has been added since the company’s representative had reportedly abused and threatened Kakkad of dire consequences if he persisted with his complaint.
Interestingly, the names of sellers mentioned under the listing on the ecommerce site are Mahakaal Enterprises and Perfect Times. Club Factory can get away by claiming that the sellers had committed the fraud on their site, and they cannot be held responsible.
The police will conduct an investigation and bring up the charges. The top officials at Club Factory have said they are looking into the matter.
This is not the first instance of such counterfeit products being sold online surfacing. Sometime earlier, a television channel had run a video of fake sports shoes of a well-known brand being made in a factory and were said to be sold through online sites.