My Experience with the Consumer Court

Case Related to Unaddressed E7 Error in TCL Airconditioner

In the summer of 2021, when I purchased an Air Conditioner from a fairly unknown brand, I didn't realize it would be the start of a 26 month and 3 week battle to get rid of it. It seemed jinxed right from Day 1. First, the delivery was delayed. When it did get delivered, I received a different inner and outer unit so I had to wait for the correct units to be delivered before it could be installed. This took the company and their distributor a whole month and by the time the AC was finally installed, the summer season was already over. I thought that was the end of it but that was just a teaser.

At the start of the summer of 2022, I switched on the AC and saw a blinking E7 error on the panel. I wasn't too worried at this point. The AC had not been used for a while and I thought it just needed to be serviced. But no, we had been sold a defective product (confirmed in writing by the company) and we had to go through a harrowing year and a half in the Consumer Court to get the refund from the company. In the end, thanks to the support of the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum (DCDRF), we not only received a full refund, legal fees, and compensation for the mental harassment but also an apology email from the company.

Since I've seen several similar reports of ACs from the same brand, I'll share the name of the company and model to ensure others don't have to go through the same experience. The model we purchased is:
TCL 1 Ton 3 Star Elite Series-Smart Air TAC-12CSD/V3S

If you found this page while looking for advice on resolving issues with TCL India, check out this page for their contact information.

Timeline

Here's the timeline of the journey. Check out the other sections for more on the journey and tips on how to handle similar cases.