Timtara Director, COO Arrested

The director and the chief operations officer of online shopping portal, Timtara.com have been arrested by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police for allegedly duping several people by luring them with large discount offers and not delivering the ordered goods, reported media on Sunday, 31 March 2013.

 

Arindam Bose (47), the director of timatara.com, and his associate Harish Ahluwalia (35), were arrested from Sector-63, Noida, on Friday (29 March 2013). 

 

More than 200 complaints have been received by the police across the country so far in this connection. Bose, a native of Kolkata, along with three of his friends launched online shopping portal www.timtara.com in 2010 offering a wide range of products such as cameras, mobiles, home appliances, health and personal care products and lured the customers with high discounts and false representations, the police said. People placed orders for the products and made advance payments, but the goods were never delivered despite repeated requests and follow-ups. 

 

Bose has a BTech in Electronics from Jadavpur University and has worked as an IT professional for firms in India and abroad. 

 

BW | Businessworld had been the first to cover the  Timtara issue nearly a year ago, (Read: The Star Loses Its Sheen  ) after receiving several "please save us from Timtara" kind of mails from irate buyers whose purchases had not been delivered even weeks after the committed date. Right from buyers to Timtara's sellers, people had been chasing Timtara either for getting a refund for their undelivered products or calling up the office numbers for pending payments.

 

Many sellers Businessworld spoke to at that time had between Rs 5-10 lakh stuck with Timtara.  Timtara's private label cellphones under the "Buzz" brand, which was started in June 2010, was also put on hold in January 2012. The buzz was that the company has burnt too much cash on the low-margin, high volume electronics category which never picked up. Timtara was getting these products contract manufactured at China.