In a stark reminder of recent cases in which Indians have been legally intimidated for what they wrote online on social networks, an MBA applicant from Kolkata has been threatened with legal proceedings by a CAT test preparation company after he expressed dissatisfaction with the institute’s pricing and product information through a post on an online forum. According to the institute, the student had used the words ‘cheat’ and ‘fraud’ to describe them, which they found to be defamatory in nature.
In a letter sent to the student, the director at coaching institute Vista Mind (formed by a breakaway group of people previously running centers for T.I.M.E., another coaching institute headquartered at Hyderabad and having branches across the country) has threatened to ‘initiate appropriate legal proceedings’ against the student because he accused them of ‘basic information hiding and fraudulent activity’ on a PaGaLGuY thread. The letter goes on to say that the accusation is ‘wholly untrue and without any basis whatsoever’, and that the student should remove his post failing which he would face legal consequences.
(Taken aback by the letter, the student deleted his post last week. “My parents urged me to delete the post as they did not want to get tangled in any legal mess,” he said. We have however retained a screenshot of the post.)
The student’s post on PaGaLGuY.com (now deleted).
The student however has a different story to tell.
In the post dated July 15, 2012, the student had pointed out that Vista Mind’s website had not been completely truthful about the pricing of their test series products. According to the website, the prices for the basic, enhanced and advanced test series are Rs 1,000, Rs 1,950 and Rs 2,950 respectively. What the website did not mention was that these prices were special offers only for those who had studied at the rival T.I.M.E. coaching institute before.
“When I went to register at the Kolkata Vista Mind centre, I was informed that these prices were applicable only for students who have studied at a T.I.M.E. coaching centre previously,” he said. The price for non ex-T.I.M.E. students was Rs 3,000 (basic), Rs 3,500 (enhanced) and Rs 4,000 (advanced).
(By the time this story was written, Vista Mind had taken down the basic test series pricing webpage from their website. We however present screenshots of that and other webpages that we had saved beforehand.)
Screenshots of the Vista Mind webpages declaring test series prices without the fine print.
Despite this, he decided to buy the mock test series because the institute’s website claimed to provide students with ’15 Online Mock CATs vetted by the VM CAT experts’. However, after making the purchase and logging in to the test series section of the website, he was redirected to Testfunda.com, another online test-prep company where he found that all the tests were basically TestFunda.com content. Feeling cheated since the student was already a Testfunda customer, he demanded a full refund of the test series from Vista Mind, which he received on July 28, 2012. Post this, he added another reply to the same forum saying,
Hi Puys,Finally Vistamind has returned my money…a cheque of Rs 4000 signed by Mr. Rahul Reddy This proves that they surely acknowledged the fact that they are cheating people. All the sectional tests are from test funda and all mocks are from CL+ test funda….nice way to start Vistamind. Stop cheating people.
At the time of writing this story, the website continued to not clarify the fact that those 15 mock CATs were basically repackaged Testfunda mocks.
Rahul Reddy, the Vista Mind director who had written the letter threatening with legal repercussions contested the student’s claims. “When students come to enroll with us, the counselors make it clear to the students that we will be providing them with 15 Testfunda and 10 Career Launcher mocks,” he said. He added that of the approximately 200 test series customers from last year, this was the only student who had asked for a refund, which Vista Mind had complied with.
What about students who were paying for the test series online on the Vista Mind website? Not providing a clear answer to the question, Rahul said that counselors at the institute clarified all the matters to the students who came to register with them. “We do not hide anything from our students. If that would have been the case we would have received a higher number of requests for refund, which has not happened,” he said.
The student disagrees with Reddy’s version and insists that he had not received any counselling about the origin of the mock test content when he had visited Vista Mind to buy the test series.
The letter sent by Reddy to the student further says that “By posting such malicious and false claims on an online forum you have not only caused damage to our brand but even financial loss to our business”. However, on asking Reddy whether any prospective customer had referenced the controversial forum post or had the test series seen dwindling customers, his responses were hesitant.
“It is common sense that a search result showing at the top of the page will affect our reputation,” he said, expressing inability to share the number of customers for this year’s test series as it was still under sale. “We are willing to let the matter die down if the student removes his post from the online forum,” he said.
Asked about why the institute had written to the student nine months after the forum post had been written, Rahul said that he had hoped that the buzz surrounding the forum post would die down. But since Google still showed the post as one of the top results when one searching for Vista Mind, the institute was forced to take some action.
Our view
Whether or not Vista Mind’s counselors informed the student that their mocks were Testfunda mocks depends on whose word you trust, the student’s or Rahul Reddy’s. Neither has proof. We are compelled to trust the student’s version more for two reasons. Firstly, because it simply sounds illogical on his part to knowingly buy Testfunda tests from Vista Mind after having already bought them directly from Testfunda. Secondly, because Vista Mind’s website has been truly deceptive about the nature of its test series product. As recently as until last week, it was passing off its special offer prices for T.I.M.E. students as its standard pricing, and did not inform that it was basically reselling Testfunda products, something that existing Testfunda customers deserve to know without having to waste time in physically making that trip to a Vista Mind center.
It goes to the institute’s credit that it did refund the student’s money. But instead of shooting off a letter that would intimidate the student enough to make him/her delete the forum post without even examining whether he/she was on solid legal ground, Vista Mind could have simply replied to the post themselves with their version of the story, and in the process earned the goodwill of prospective customers by demonstrating that they believed in fair play. Because even now, the student’s clarification about the nature of the test series product is factually correct and relevant and demonstrates natural behaviour from a customer who feels cheated and wishes to caution others by advising them to ask the right questions before making the purchase. But by sending a legal threat and not making the necessary clarifications on their website, Vista Mind has shown that it would rather lure customers by providing vague product information online and then intimidating those who try to clarify it for others.
Added later: The student had in fact posted a rejoinder (now added to the article), to which also Vista Mind had an objection since it used the word ‘cheating’ to describe them. We regret the omission.