Indiamart is one of India’s largest business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces and serves as a conduit for trade, connecting buyers with suppliers.
As the platform handles millions of rupees worth of transactions daily, it is natural for people to ask questions about Indiamart’s security features.
In this article, we will discuss whether Indiamart is safe and how to protect yourself from the platform’s supposed scams.
Here’s what we will cover:
What is Indiamart?
Indiamart was founded in 1999 with a mission to make doing business easy. Currently, the company claims to have more than 187 million buyers and 7.8 million suppliers and offers more than 104 million products.
The platform acts as a connecting portal for buyers and sellers where they can negotiate and settle their payments.
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Is Indiamart safe?
As the company has been operating for more than two decades, we can surely say that it is a legitimate platform. However, several scams are happening on the platform, so you need to be aware of them and take the right precautions.
Furthermore, we checked the domain name on Virustotal and Scamadviser to provide our readers with additional peace of mind.
Virustotal
As you can see from the screenshot above, the Indiamart website does not contain malware or other malicious software and is pretty safe to use. None of the 93 vendors who checked the website reported any unusual activities.
Scamadviser
On Scamadviser, too, Indiamart received a trust score of 100/100, which means that the platform is not a scam. That being said, we cannot confirm that the platform is safe for you as the company has received only a rating of 1.8/5 based on 558 reviews.
This means that most customers are dissatisfied with Indiamart’s service. To assess the customer reviews further, we head to Trustpilot.
Trustpilot
Indiamart performs poorly on Trustpilot and other customer review platforms. The platform scored only 1.8/5 based on 143 reviews. Of these, a whopping 82% are 1-star reviews, while only 16% are 5-star.
Customers said the platform is actively selling fake products and has taken no action against scammers.
Furthermore, they also had problems with the payment and refund process.
Although the platform is legit and legal, the above analysis shows it is a gold mine for scammers and malicious sellers who might exploit unsuspecting customers.
Moreover, the platform has seen two massive data breaches: one in 2020, when the data of 44,000 suppliers was leaked, and the other in 2021, when 38 million data records were leaked. These records included email addresses, country, landmarks, state, PIN codes, mobile numbers, and addresses.
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How to protect yourself from scammers on Indiamart?
Now that we have understood that Indiamart is a legit website but also attracts a lot of scammers, in this section, we will provide you with some tips on how to protect yourself:
- Verify the seller’s credentials: There is a feature on Indiamart called TrustSEAL where the suppliers register themselves on the platform by paying an amount and getting their address and other details verified. Always buy from TrustSEAL-verified suppliers.
- Use secure payment methods: Scammers on the platform may ask you to pay via cash, money order, or other unsafe methods. If you receive such a request, promptly deny it and cancel your orders from that supplier. Only use secure payment methods to complete the transaction.
- Use the verified contact details: Only use the contact details given on Indiamart to talk to your supplier.
- Paying on Indiamart: You are covered under the platform’s buyer protection when you pay on the Indiamart platform. However, this service is scheduled to be discontinued on March 31st, 2024; after that, you must choose a secure platform to complete the transaction. This may include UPI or net banking, among others.
In conclusion, Indiamart is a safe platform if you know how to protect yourself from scammers lurking to extort money. However, if you use common sense and follow the tips that we have provided above, you will have no problems figuring out the real sellers from the scammers, and you will successfully complete your business on Indimart.
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