Three dead Flipkart vouchers, nearly 40 emails and a DVLUP refund

Yesterday I wrote about how Amazon replaced my scratched Kindle after just one chat, with the new one at my door the very next day. Funny thing is, also yesterday, DVLUP finally refunded the 3,000 points I spent on Flipkart gift cards back in August. That one took five and a half months, nearly 40 emails across three threads and at least four different people on the support side. Same day, two very different stories!

For those who don’t know, DVLUP is Nokia’s rewards programme for Windows Phone developers. You do app challenges and quizzes, earn XP and then spend it in a rewards store. Back in August, in my Lumia tally post, I said this voucher mess would get its own post once it had an ending. Well, now it has one. Most of my points have gone on phones, and phones take weeks to arrive (my Lumia 1520 took six!). So this time I wanted something instant.

The Lumia 1520 I ordered for 19,000 DVLUP points, on the evening it finally arrived in March 2014.

26th August: three gift cards, zero working

On 26th August 2014, I redeemed 3,000 XP for three Rs 1,000 Flipkart gift cards. They were instant rewards, so the codes showed up straight away. I went to Flipkart to use them and 27 minutes after the DVLUP order went through, I was already writing to DVLUP support:

None of the Voucher works! :( … Unknown gift card number, ErrorCode: 1007. This is sad, I just spent my 3000 points and this happens!

The auto-reply told me the support monkey was away and asked if I had tried updating my apps. Yeah, thanks.

Two days later, a real human replied. They were working out how to fix it for me and for others who had been hit too. So at least I wasn’t the only one!

September: replacement codes, same problem

I nudged them on 31st August and again on 4th September: “It’s been 8 days… Either give me correct voucher or refund my points.” That either/or became my line for the next five months.

On 17th September, a mail called “Your FlipKart Reward” arrived with replacement codes and an apology for an error on their side. I tried them the next day. Didn’t work either. On the 19th, I asked again for working coupons or my 3,000 points back. Support said their colleagues at Microsoft were working on a fix.

Microsoft bought Nokia’s phone business last year and DVLUP is moving over with it, so my three gift cards were now lost somewhere in that handover.

October and November: the handover

By 18th October, I had run out of patience and I wrote this:

Being a top valued dev, I stop the development of WP as of today and I am going to write a big blog post about how ‘unprofessional’ you guys are.

The next reply, on 29th October, came from someone in global support who had never seen my case. The local support teams had been dissolved, they said, and global support handled everything now. So on the 30th, I explained the whole thing again from scratch and mentioned that I was one of the top 5 DVLUP developers in India, for whatever that was worth.

On 2nd November, I sent them a screenshot: on the DVLUP site, my order now had a new GUID-style order ID. Next day, support said they were working with the team at Microsoft and also with Flipkart.

Other developers had their own questions too. In early November, an idea on the DVLUP community site titled “Is DVLUP dead?”, with 36 votes, was closed with an answer that DVLUP wasn’t dead, it was going through an integration with Microsoft.

On 10th November, I asked if there was still nothing (“So nothing yet? :D Hahaha this is superb!”) and said I felt like posting the whole thread on social media. The reply, from an “Administrative Support Gerbil” whose signature said “Now Serving 192 Countries!”, was that they had a lot of enquiries like mine. A week later, I had a second Lumia fight going, this one in public on Twitter with @lumiaHelp over my 1520’s ghost touches. That one wrapped up sooner at least, I had the phone back, repaired, in early January.

December: one more code, same result

On 14th December, I wrote “1 more month gone :D” and accused them of stealing my 3k points. Next day, support sent one replacement voucher. To be fair, they were honest about the scale: this Flipkart problem had hit hundreds of users in many countries and investigating just one voucher was a long process. And they had hundreds!

I tried it on the 16th. “INVALID VOUCHER INFORMATION.” Of course. And the same Flipkart reward was still listed in the DVLUP store for anyone to redeem. On the 22nd, support explained that once a voucher shows as redeemed, they have to investigate every claim on it.

January and February: the refund

In January, someone new took over and called it a known issue affecting multiple users. On 10th January, I sent them the same mail three times in four minutes, which I’m not proud of. On 2nd February, support said they were having trouble accessing my details, and on 9th February the case went to the rewards processing team.

On 11th February, the answer finally came: there had been an issue with that batch of rewards, so they refunded my points. 3,000 points, back in my DVLUP account! I never got working vouchers though, just the second half of what I’d asked for on 4th September.

What I learned escalating with a rewards programme

Test instant codes the moment you get them. My first mail went out within half an hour of the order, so the problem was on record from day one.

Ask for a specific outcome, and offer two. “Working vouchers or my points back” was my line from day nine, and the points are what I finally got.

Keep the case in one thread with the history quoted. When the local team was dissolved, the person who picked it up didn’t know me at all and the old mails were the only record. Mine ended up spread over three threads, and in October I had to restate everything from scratch.

Send screenshots. When my order changed IDs, I sent a picture of it instead of trying to describe it.

Expect a batch problem to move slowly. My codes were a few among hundreds, with DVLUP, Microsoft and Flipkart all involved, right in the middle of a company handover. I doubt anyone I was mailing could have fixed my vouchers on their own.

And no, sending the same mail three times in four minutes doesn’t get you a reply three times faster. :P

After the refund, I asked them straight out whether DVLUP is going to die. There has been no new device in the store for six months and I have close to 18,000 points just sitting there. Today’s reply: new Flipkart orders should work fine and DVLUP has no plans to die yet. Let’s see!