UPS battery retailers are fleecing people by over charging their customers, after their demand increased in summer.
The battery retailers also do not honour their warranty commitments on one pretext or the other, while they charge up to Rs 400 extra for recharging a battery even during the warranty period.
With the advent of summer and increased loadshedding, people have to use the uninterrupted power supply (UPS) in their houses and shops. People who buy these devices are forced to either replace batteries or get them recharged. The long and frequent outages cause batteries to wear out earlier than usual, especially during the summer.
Consumers complain of shorter life of batteries from various manufacturing factors. A trader, Assad Bhatti in Saddar Bazaar, attributed the malfunctioning to the retailers’ practice of storing batteries for more than a year. To earn more money, he said, businessmen buy batteries in bulk and then store them, which reduce the life of battery cells and fail to produce the desired results.
He urged authorities concerned to formulate standard rates to protect consumers from any kind of exploitation at the hands of battery retailers.
On contact, Touqir Ahmed, proprietor of a battery retail store, said retailers could not replace batteries on every claim since manufacturers set very hard rules for
replacing them.