India's largest online shopping portal Flipkart, is once again facing the heat on social media after a Facebook post scrutinising its discount rate on a product went viral. Accused of raising prices just before giving big discounts in the past, the online portal was caught on the wrong foot when one of its customers Mani Shankar Sen noticed a disconnect between the MRP and 50% discount being offered on a pair of ladies sandals on the Flipkart website.

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According to the image in his Facebook post, the seller appeared to have increased the cost of the sandals by 50% before offering the same product at a discount of 50%. He alleged that Flipkart had displayed the price of the sandals as Rs 799 and highlighted its '50%' discount available on the pair of sandals. Everything was good, only if they hadn't forgotten to remove the original price (Rs 399) from the strap of the sandal.

In its response on the Facebook post, Flipkart apologised and promised to look into and rectify the mistake.

In its response to dna, a Flipkart spokesperson said, “Flipkart is a marketplace which helps sellers connect with customers across the country. We have investigated the incident and after receiving the full report we have suspended the sellers. Flipkart adopts a zero tolerance policy towards any instances where the seller has sold a product above the MRP stated on the label. When found in violation of our policy, sellers are suspended and further blacklisted. Flipkart takes utmost care in ensuring that product information on the marketplace is not misleading and for this, we rely on our sellers to share correct information with us.”

Flipkart has received a lot of brickbats in the past as well, during its much touted 'Big Billion Day sale' which left several customers dissatisfied with similar accusations of inflated prices and tell tale discounts.