Tatasky retail through Indiaplaza - Review

LATEST UPDATE:
A person from Tatasky called me up on Monday (5-Mar) and understood what the problem was. Then on Wednesday (7-Mar) Indiaplaza folks called me up and explained that they have corrected the problem and it should work fine now. Specifically, they updated to the correct digital certificate. Apparently these problems crept in when they moved their domain from fabmall to Indiaplaza. I did try an online purchase later and it worked. So at their level Indiaplaza could fix their problem and at Tatasky's level, they clearly have good leverage with Indiaplaza. Good for them!


ORIGINAL POST:
I would recommend against making online purchases on Indiaplaza.in because of massive security hazards. I would also wish that Tatasky take their online sales partnership to a better site, because Tatasky is a good product and deserves quality partners. Here are the details:


I bought a Tatasky digital television connection for my parents, for use at their ancestral town, by transacting through Indiaplaza.in. Indiaplaza is the new avatar of fabmall.com, of which I had been an initerant user for few years now. My parents are reasonably satisfied with Tatasky and I am too as I feel good that my parents get digital quality at their small town home thanks to Satellite technology. This week, I needed to buy recharge coupons to pay for the next few months charge (this is how Tatasky gets payment - somewhat like prepaid mobiles in India). This needed to be a quick transaction on the Indiaplaza portal which would send the recharge code to my email address. I would call the Tatasky IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System) and convey this code. Viola, the Tatasky connection gets charged automatically. Alas, this was not to be. When I logged into Indiaplaza, it was plan http, not secure http. Then I added the recharge coupon to my shopping card and went ahead. I got a warning that the certificate used by Indiaplaza is expired.



This is really a very hazardous situation and shouldn't be allowed to happen by the techies maintaining Indiaplaza. I hope this is really a rare slip up. Taking the risk, I clicked Yes and proceeded further. As it was moving to the payment gateway, https kicked in, with the warning however: That the following screen is a combination of secure and unsecure items (not exact wording). I continued and reached the payment gateway. This had the following error:

Apparently, the payment gateway is better managed and rejected a transaction which has questionable credentials. In my urgency to get the recharge, I tried repeatedly and always failed. Then I thought that there should be other online retailers selling Tatasky stuff. And realized that, unfortunately Tatasky sells only through Indiaplaza. Indiaplaza being the mess it is now, I am surely not going to buy anymore there. And I am sure most buyers of my generation would stop buying because: (1) They are smart at identifying such security hazards (2) Word spreads really fast about such issues.

Now, I do get badly impacted as I now have to find a shop that sells the physical card and buy that. This is something my generation hates - sloppy usage of internet technology. It would have been so much smoother to buy from ebay, amazon or even indiatimes. Remember, that a lot of people aren't even physically in India to buy the physical recharge voucher. Tatasky would do well to stop partnership with Indiaplaza and identify a better online retailer. Better still, why doesn't it sell on all online retailers? I hope it cares about my business and that of people like me - there's lots of them. Else, my Tatasky goes for an auction on ebay - soon.