‘They sold off the cattle I bought online’

Amid widespread criticism of authorities' lacklustre monitoring of errant e-commerce companies, Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi yesterday described how even he was once cheated by an online company.

Back in 2020, he was the chief guest of the inaugural ceremony of Digital Haat, an online buying and selling platform of sacrificial animals for Eid-ul-Azha.

Commerce Minister inaugurated it by buying a cow for Tk 1 lakh but the sacrificial animal was never delivered.

"I waited to get delivery of the cow," he said.

After six or seven days he was informed by the online company that the cow which was shown to the minister was sold to another buyer.

As a solution, the online company told the minister that since the selected cow was sold, they wanted to give him another one at Tk87,000 and a goat.

Without mentioning the name of the online company, the minister said he agreed to the new proposal.

However, he also asked the e-commerce company to sacrifice the cow on behalf of his family and give him a third of the meat and to distribute the rest to others.

This year, before Eid-ul-Azha, the minister ordered his sacrificial animal online but this time the company delivered his chosen cow.

Munshi shared this unfortunate experience with an e-commerce company at a workshop on healthy competition in the markets for economic journalists, jointly organised by Economic Reporters Forum and Bangladesh Competition Commission (BCC) at the latter's office in Dhaka.