Tata Nano Booking Reality - Unethical

Just to clarify a few things before u read the entire post. I agree it might be a case of 'sour grapes ' for me as i was not able to buy the Car given the Booking terms and conditions. So may be this post is out of my frustration but that is for you to decide.


Booking for Tata is like buying a very Expensive lottery Ticket. Even if you apply for the base model you shell out 95k as the booking amount. Since when do we have to give the entire amount at the time of booking??? Of if you are thinking its just 2850 are mistaken by the the Marketing jargon. Welcome to the real World.

You can of course book the Nano for 2850 by taking a Bank loan for the booking amount. Even after the credit crunch Banks have not learned their lessons. Bank loan for a Booking amount of the worlds cheapest car. Just imagine the "sub-prime" customers that the banks will be attracting!! Coming to the point you take a 95K loan at an interest of 10%pa. and shell out only 2850 for the booking. what does it mean for you?? The 2850 is not actually refundable in case you dont get the car. It goes as the interest for the 3 months which will take to declare the lottery results and processing fees of the bank. So thats why i said its a expensive Lottery Ticket. Rather you can buy a Rs-10 lottery ticket from play2win promising you a 1 crore prize.


The online form will cost non-refundable Rs 200. Save Paper seems to be the moto of Tata; but it comes at a cost. Why should ther be a charge for the online forms when a person is comminting 95k as the booking amount. yes you got it right. Its like the MBA schools selling admission forms to prospective students and making money out of it. so as expected if there are 5 lakh bookings and out of this even if 20% are online ( e-commerce is booming) Tata will rake in a whooping 2 crore and 12 crore out of the paper forms a net income of 14 crores from just the sale of forms. huh!! and they say GM and Ford need Bailout packages. They just need a nice marketing guy ;)

So This is the Deal. People take loan from banks at an interest for the "people's car" and give it to Tata for 3 months at no interest. yes 0%. As projected if there are 5 lakh applicants Tatas will be able to generate 5000 crore. This is nearly half of the Reliance Power IPO. Tatas earning from the interest alone will be 150 crore. This money Tata will use for financing the worlds most expensive car 'luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rove' ( okie not the most expensive). What an Irony!! Cheapest Car to support the luxury brands.

The company will also charge a processing fee of Rs 500 on every application submitted. Banks will charge an additional processing fee. For instance, SBI will levy Rs 124 as processing fee. So much for the worlds cheapest CAR. So i think its all a fraud and its a way of cheating middle class indians out of their hard earned money. Why a lottery. Give it on a first-come-first-serve basis. or wait till you ramp up your production. Or else fine do a lottery but dont take a moolah for the booking amount. what do you think Guys?? is this fair??