Chennai: The Vellore Association for IT (VAIT) recently caught hold of sales executives of Andes India, a partner of Microsoft in Chennai, for impersonating as the vendor's employees and carrying fake 'raids'.

The executives landed in a soup when they raided a channel partner-Vellore Online Systems- not knowing that the partner was himself a Microsoft dealer.

“ Vellore Online Systems informed VAIT about the raid. We questioned the sales executives and found that they were from Andes India and were actually selling MS products. They pretended they had the necessary documents for conducting raids in the town. On further questioning they finally accepted that the raids were a tactic for generating leads and selling the software,” informed C Arumugam, Secretary, VAIT.

Vellore Online Systems was also taken by surprise, when the sales executives of Andes offered products for almost 10 percent discount.

“We took up this issue with Microsoft on the same day and the company denied having given any authority to Andes for conducting raids and promised us that it would look into the matter. They also totally denied supplying products at discounted rates to select partners and also have promised to look into the price difference issues existing in the region,” informed Arumugam.

VAIT claims it knew about the raids from the very first day and took up the issue with Confed-ITA, the umbrella body of IT associations in Tamil Nadu. “Confed took up the issue with Microsoft and informed us that there are no partner raids happening in the city, and raids wouldn't take place without Confed's knowledge, as per the understanding between Confed and Microsoft. However, we kept ourselves informed about the activities of the sales executives from Andes, who were targeting SMB customers,” Arumugam claimed.

VAIT handed the executives to the police and later agreed to solve the issue amicably after Andes clarified that it was taking a survey in the town for generating business leads and sell the product. Namachivayam, CEO, Andes India, Chennai claimed that the company didn't ask its representatives to conduct raids but only take a survey of the Vellore market. “It was a mistake of our sales representatives and we sacked them,” said Namachivayam.

The reporter was awaiting response from Microsoft at the time of filing this report.

Read the updated report in The DQ Week July 6-12 edition

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