RO Water Purifiers: Make Money Offline SCAM?

Initially, when my RO seller proposed an AMC contract for our water purifier for Rs. 3000 per year (or so) I thought it was a rip-off.

I mean, when we can buy a new one for around 10K INR, why spend 3K per year on maintenance alone? But now I have realized what a good deal that actually is.

Nowadays, I am calling the RO service guy or Urban Company or local plumbers for one issue or another, almost every month.

All of them are interested in just one thing: Making More Money. And the technology that enables them to do that is – Reverse Osmosis Water Purifier.

Do you still think this silly guy is ranting bcos he is out of his mind due to the pandemic? Consider these –

  • We bought a RO system for 14K and that was supposed to be a high-end one with multi-stage filtering, etc. The most recent ‘engineer’ who came to rectify a fault (actually replace parts at exorbitant costs) removed three filtering stages and told us that these parts had already been ‘dummified’. Not sure if it was done by another technician or by the seller itself!!
  • That made me wonder about the legitimacy behind the remaining four filtration stages. At that instant, he proudly discovers that the ‘UV bulb’ was just a normal tube light that we could get in electrical shops. Even that was fused off now, so it was useless. There you go – one more filtering stage is already gone.
  • When we ask for the cost of filter set replacement, everyone who comes quotes around 2 or 2.5K INR. When we point out the cost of that filter set for 700 rupees on amazon, they claim it’s ‘bad’ quality. If we offer to buy it for them they refuse to fix it! I guess they are a part of some union.
  • I told one of these guys that I was going to go back to candle based water purifier (which worked fine for many years – before this RO fad) as the water impurity/suspended particle level in our area should be less than 200. He immediately checks the tap water with his TDS meter and claims that the impurity level is 1010. We saw the screen and it showed 101 but he claims it needs to be multiplied by 10.
  • After the repair, we ask him to check with the TDS meter again, this time with RO ‘Purified’ Water. It showed 108. We ask if that means 1080, but he says this time we should not apply that 10x multiplication factor, and it’s just 108!
  • I wonder if the only function of the ‘RO water purifier’ is to take in water, add a few impurities, and send it out – as per his own TDS meter reading above!!!
  • One month back, another guy swore that our tap water TDS level was 210. That’s just 10 points above the safe level prescribed for water purification candles.
  • We ask these guys what is the best RO purifier brand and they say that most local brands use Chinese parts and hence most of them are of low-quality. They then offer to ‘assemble’ a new unit for 6K INR, instead of having to buy a new one for 10K on amazon. That shows how much margin those online manufacturers assemblers have on their RO machines.
  • One of my friends recently confirmed that he spent just 4.5K INR on a new RO machine by buying and assembling parts from the local market himself. And he says he could have got a better deal had he known the local language!

One of our relatives used to work as an engineer in a large-scale RO water purification plant in Dubai. He tells us that RO purified water is not good for health but they use it in places like Dubai bcos they have no other alternative. Ya, he uses only candles in his own house.

I am waiting for the next fault in our RO system – I guess I won’t have to wait for long. That will be the perfect excuse to run and buy one Butterfly candle-based water purifier that worked quite well for so many years.

I even feel I might be better off drinking boiled tap water than using these ‘purifiers’ grrr………… 😛

Destination Infinity

12 thoughts on “RO Water Purifiers: Make Money Offline SCAM?

  1. SG

    I always felt most Indian companies try to cheat the customers. Money from your pocket should come to my pocket without me doing anything. There was a problem with a stuff another reader (Maradhi Manni) bought and she wrote a blog post about it. I forwarded that blog post, with a strong cover letter, to the President of that Company. I don’t know if my letter to him was instrumental in the problem being fixed in 2 days.

    Please give me the name of the company and I will write to them forwarding your blog post. They should know a blog post was written and many people read that.

    1. Rajesh K

      I guess our interaction with that company has moved beyond reparation. There is one more money-making tactic these guys do that I forgot to mention in the post. Their engineers visit our house without us calling them, try to service the RO machine and demand payment! The culture of ripping off customers seems to have percolated to everyone there – unfortunately from the top!

      It may be better to buy an RO system (if necessary) from some better vendors like Eureka Forbes, Blue Star, or Kent.

      Destination Infinity

      1. Jayashree srivatsan (jaish vats)

        Ha ha .

        The whole exercise must have made you so thirsty! Often I get calls from companies to install air purifiers … that should be next in line 😀

        1. Rajesh K

          New products are fine as long as they work. Once they start malfunctioning, the purse becomes lighter and lighter… 😉

          Destination Infinity

  2. Jeevan

    Yes, we face the same with the RO guys and they refuse to fix the filers we bought in amazon what is much cheaper than they charge. And the TDS meter never showed us the right volume and what they say it’s all. We service once or twice a year, however we change the outer filers on our own it cost us more than 2k yearly either for the motor or membrane. My uncle had a new RO for 7k last month.

    1. Rajesh K

      I think it would be a good business idea to teach people how to maintain/replace their RO purifier and components by themselves. I heard there are many youtube videos that are already there on this topic, already.

      Destination Infinity

  3. Renu

    This is our culture in everything and initially I thought Chennai is better than north in this regard. Even thru urban clap I asked for a repair in washing machine, they changed something and charged but it didn’t work and they shaked off the responsibility by saying that this company’s spare parts are not available

    1. Rajesh K

      Although new apps have come to streamline the availability of service personnel, we still are faced with the same people with a similar mentality as before.

      Destination Infinity

  4. Pradeep

    We have an RO water purifier which we bought five years ago. Whenever we had to replace the filter, we always called the company directly.

    Usually the technician who comes to replace will give his mobile number and tell you to call him directly and that he would provide the same filter at a cheaper cost. We never did that.

    It’s always better to go for some reputable firm, and always deal directly with the company executives, even if it means a few hundreds more in cost.

    Whenever anything is offered at a discount, I always suspect there is some thing which we are missing.

    1. Rajesh K

      With RO Water Purifiers I doubt if there is any quality even with reputed names.

      Destination Infinity

  5. ashok

    Totally agree…i too can write a long post on my experience with RO guys…

    1. Rajesh K

      All of us can. I wish I could learn how to install and repair RO systems myself. That will save a lot of time and money.

      Destination Infinity

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