Joshi was responding to a post on X that highlighted e-commerce platform Flipkart’s opaque charges. In a post, the user who highlighted Flipkart’s practices wrote, “Forget Rain Fee by Zomato/Swiggy/Zepto. See the masterstroke by Flipkart:
• Offer Handling Fee (for giving me the discount you advertised??)
• Payment Handling Fee (for letting me pay you??)
• Protect Promise Fee (protecting me from what… satisfaction?)
Next up: Scrolling App Fee” [sic]
The charges levied were Rs 99 for the offer Handling Fee, Rs 48 for the payment handling fee, and Rs 79 for the protect promise Fee, totalling Rs 226 on a Rs 24,999 discounted item.
With 134,000 views and over 60 replies sharing similar screenshots, the post ignited backlash, prompting India’s Consumer Affairs Ministry to probe Flipkart and Amazon for dark patterns, with Joshi promising regulatory action.
