NEW DELHI: E-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal are lobbying to avoid being required to pay for any fraudulent transactions made by sellers who are registered with their platforms.
These businesses argue that they merely act as facilitators of transactions between buyers and sellers, and that any attempt to hold them liable for fraud committed by sellers would weaken their stated position as intermediaries. Both the seller and the platform each have their own distinct scope of work. It is essential to safeguard the shopper with obviously expressed strategies and time bound discounts however the legitimate obligation of a merchant can't be moved to the stage as well as the other way around. We will no longer function as an intermediary if we begin to assume legal responsibilities that fall under the purview of sellers. An executive from an e-commerce company stated, "We then become like an ade-facto seller, which is not who we are."
There have been a few cases where buyers have been conveyed harmed items or have gotten a piece of block rather than a cell phone, in the wake of putting in web-based requests. E-commerce businesses have been asked by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to explain their roles as intermediaries under the Information Technology Act of 2000 and provide details about how they handle complaints from customers. In response, Flipkart, which is owned by Walmart, and Amazon have emphasized that FDI rules for e-commerce only allow marketplaces to act as intermediaries and that any attempt to assign fall-back liability will increase their oversight and violate FDI rules.