true. neither this growing industry is regulated here with an assiduous e-commerce law to monitor it, nor is it directly contributing to the economic growth of the nation, contrary to what the scene is/has been in the west, where the industry usually finds its roots from. flouting the norms of FEMA, FDI, predatory pricing et al is a kind of routine business for the players, and the attention of bodies like ED falls on them only when something of big proportions comes up (suspicions & allegations regarding business-models, money-sourcing, etc.). that's why usually (whatever) smalltime ventures/players have been forced to shut their shops, in some states, after receiving of a large no. of complaints via the cyber crime cells. probably that has to do with law & order being a state-subject. but the GoI i think had assured last year to look into the matter and formulate a proper law if needed, or include additional dedicated provisions in the existing Acts. till then (supposing that it happens later on), consumer protection laws/courts and cyber crime cells are probably the only possible recourses to bank upon. these e-portals gradually transitioning to marketplace business models seems to be a clever trick. whenever complaints regarding frauds are placed against them, one of their first lines of defence is usually that we are just service-providers for seller & customer and blah blah blah, and they slip away. something should be devised to tactfully circumvent their ruses & arm-twist them into submission!
i also have purchased quite a few items from SD in particular, but most purchases were made during their heydays, and most, if not all, were low-value items. even till last year, i have read people getting costly products like ICE components, GPUs, etc. from them without any apparent issues. however, such cases were few, and are increasingly being outweighed by reports of botched up deals & the customer-care torture-sessions, as $hadow too affirms. although admittedly, i have also read that they are usually do refund the amount for deals gone awry; or perhaps that too has become a thing of the recent past now. don't know.
