The Shark In The Tank - Rostfrei steels Pvt Ltd

Rostfrei Steels Private Limited: The Shark in the Tank

Rostfrei steels Private Company established in 2004, based in New Delhi. Some might even say Rostfrei Steels is a shark in the water supply system business. Various reports say that their loyalty with their clients and customers have been more than capable of keeping them up and running in the business. But of the 2 decades, they’ve been in business in, the later one has built quite an infamous reputation for them.

The said infamous reputation has a firm foundation because of various factors spread over a period of 10 years. Like every other big company who comes out failing their customers in the end one can easily chart out the change and as an extension their pattern of behavior, by looking into the minute details of their customer reports.

But the case of Rostfrei steels are seen to be a little different, one would say their pattern is that of a procrastinating student. The first step is a classic case of late delivery. Now, one would wonder how late deliveries of water tanks matter.

 But for contractors and architects who put their reputation on the line every time they make a promise to the client about the completion date of their projects, late deliveries of third-party supplies create bigger problems for them. This was the case when Arcade, a consulting firm based in Gurgaon lost their plumbing contract with the Patel family when Rostfrei delivered their order of 5, 1000 KL GLS tanks a week later than requested.

The thing that makes late deliveries worse is the low quality of the products. The drowning quality of their products began in 2012 with the first defect complaint reported in March; wherein the delivered GLS tanks had a twitch in their lid, that they claimed was caused during transportation. Then it was just a small road from weakly linked lids to use of brittle plastic that started causing leakages in the water system of residences and even huge apartment buildings, that in turn created damages that cost lakhs to repair.

Manufacturing defects may be minute but they do large scale damage over time. By the year 2015, Rostfrei steels saw complaint reports filing is not only about their defected tanks but also their other products such as stop cocks and drain pipes. This was what created the most problems for both the Rostfrei steels and their clients. The clients because manufacturing defects can be so minute that you won’t be able to detect them even if you check the product prior to delivery but yet they turn out to be so crucial and lethal that they collapse entire systems.

 The biggest example of which was the lawsuit against the Rostfrei steels by Aranya Apartments in Chandigarh where they were sued for 75 lakhs for supplying damaged tanks and falsifying quality checks, that had rusted nuts in the lids and connectors in the pipes that polluted the water supply of an entire block of 35 apartments. However, this was not the only case where the said defects allegedly went unnoticed at the time of checking. The galvanization of nuts and bolts became a real issue when they saw the same cases of damage caused due to the failure of connectors and joiners in the system come up four times in a year.

This was how 2015 proved to be the hardest for Rostfrei steels. After being threatened thrice by a lawsuit and paying a hefty fee for being actually sued once, they decided to make their quality checks more thorough and advanced. But evidently, that wasn’t a hard enough hit to get them off of their high horse. After rectifying their products and wiping their slate clean of all the right proven allegations, Rostfrei Steels still rose up with what the elders like to call, ‘A bit of an Attitude problem’. Numerous cases of wrong delivery started floating around that proved to be deliberate when repeated interrogative phone calls when unattended by them. Evidently, this became a thought over scam as all the wrong deliveries were made to the clients that paid on the confirmation, prior to the supply. This was a very basic and a nonchalant plan, where you let go of all credibility and association with the clients once you get paid. But for someone as big as Rostfrei steels Pvt ltd in the business, it was also a very stupid plan that wasn’t so thought over. Because, the bigger the fish, the higher it sells.  

In August 2018, when Affluent Paradise, an export fashion house based in Old Delhi hired Rostfrei steels for consultancy and installation of the water supply system. It was their biggest sale in 5 years and hence was big news in the industry. It was a fair sale but when half of the fees were paid after consultancy, things went south and they ended with the biggest lawsuit Rostfrei steels were ever slapped on by.  They were sued for fraudulent sales and embezzlement. The lawsuit settled with the McWilliams paying Affluent Paradise 90 lakhs for damages.

Rostfrei rode on very high tides and saw the greatest flourishment any business could wish for, but they let it take the better of them. The reign of this shark ended in October 2018 when Rostfrei steels declared bankruptcy.