I've spent the last few months digging into consumer complaints on electronics/appliance purchases in India, and the pattern is almost always the same: people don't lose disputes because they're wrong. They lose because they miss a deadline they didn't know existed.

Three that come up constantly:

1. The 7-10 day "return window" is shorter than you think. Most marketplaces start the clock from delivery date, not from when you noticed the defect. If your washing machine has a manufacturing fault you don't spot for 12 days, you've technically already lost your return eligibility — even though the product is defective. Open the box and test everything within 48 hours, every time.

2. "Refund initiated" is not "refund received." Companies love to close a complaint the moment they mark a refund as "initiated" on their end. There's usually no SLA holding them to actually crediting your account by a specific date. Always ask in writing: "By what date will the amount reflect in my account?" and save that message — it becomes your evidence if it doesn't happen.

3. Warranty claims have a documentation window, not just a time window. A lot of "denied" warranty claims aren't denied because the product isn't covered — they're denied because the consumer couldn't produce the original invoice or a clear defect video within the company's request window (often just 48-72 hours). If you're not saving your invoice and taking a defect video the day something breaks, you're already behind.

The common thread: companies run structured, deadline-driven internal processes for handling your complaint. Consumers run their memory and a Gmail search. That asymmetry is the whole game.

I'm building something to fix this (Pakka — a system that tracks your purchases, warranties, and deadlines automatically, and tells you exactly what to do when something breaks). But even without any tool, the fix is simple: the moment you buy something over ₹5,000, save the invoice, note the return/warranty deadline somewhere you'll actually see it, and document defects immediately, not "eventually."

Happy to answer questions if anyone's mid-dispute right now.