E-orange announces further delays amid customer backlash 

Citing attacks, harassment and lawsuits, online e-commerce shop e-orange has announced that its deliveries will be delayed further.

The embattled e-commerce platform, whose owner and her husband were sent to jail on Tuesday, made a plea on its Facebook page, asking for help from customers to expedite the delivery process.

In the Facebook post, it wrote, "Dear customers and resellers of e-orange.shop, we would like to inform that we are working tirelessly for all the activities and delivery.

"But in the last few days, some customers have filed lawsuits against the board and officials of our organisation to harass us and are spreading rumours through social media. We have suffered greatly from this. Many of our officials have already resigned and many are suffering from insecurity. Our officials cannot go to the office and the deliverymen can't go to the warehouse.

"In this situation, we are not able to conduct normal activities as announced earlier. Still, we have started customer care and live chat just for you. But if attacks, lawsuits and harassment continue, it will be difficult for us to continue our normal activities.

"We have been receiving a lot of emails for refunds in the last few days. We are doing our best to ensure that refunds are issued quickly via SSL.

"You need to help [us] in this situation; we urge you to cooperate and avoid a hostile attitude."

The company also apologised for any inconvenience this may cause the customers.

However, the comment section on the post showed that the post has only angered the already angry customers who are awaiting their products.

A Dhaka court sent e-commerce platform E-orange's owner Sonia Mehjabin and her husband Masukur Rahman to jail on Tuesday.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Abu Bakar Siddique passed the order, rejecting their bail pleas.

Md Taherul Islam, on behalf of the aggrieved customers, filed the case against five people, including the owners, with Gulshan Police Station accusing them of embezzling around Tk1,100 crore.

The case was filed on Monday night following a protest by hundreds of e-orange customers in front of Gulshan Police Station.

On Tuesday, around 2,000 customers of e-orange.shop went to their former brand ambassador Mashrafe Bin Mortaza for help.

Meanwhile, the commerce ministry issued a show-cause notice to the online platform over harassment of customers.

It said it had learnt from several customers and the media that e-orange did not deliver products on time even after receiving payment from its customers, which was a violation of Customer Rights Protection Act 2009 and Penal Code 1860.

The ministry asked e-orange to explain in seven days upon receiving the notice as to why legal actions should not be taken against it.

The complainant of the case said he had paid an advance on 21 April but was yet to get either the product or a refund.

The e-commerce platform authorities were supposed to publish a product list outlining the pending orders and the stipulated delivery time.

But instead of publishing the list, it sought up to 45 to 60 days, which infuriated customers.

On 12 August, e-orange posted on their Facebook page that though their office was reportedly vandalised, they promised to deliver products on 16 August.

Around 50 customers staged a sit-in protest in front of the office on 11 August.