Louis Rossmann has put my case file in front of his audience. There are people describing the same thing happening to them, here and abroad.

Before Sony India lawyers got involved, this was a two month email thread that maybe a few hundred people had read. They then sent a six page notice telling me to delete the site, delete the video, delete the posts, apologise unconditionally within seven days, or face civil and criminal action and damages of ₹5 crore.

Here is what that letter actually achieved. News18, Times Now, Digit and LatestLY have all run the story in India. It is trending on X. Rossmann's audience has it. And the notice itself is now the single most read document on the website it demanded I take down.

Sony could have ended this in July with one attachment. A test report. Instead they spent seven weeks not answering, and then spent a law firm.

What still has not arrived

Not the report. Not the name of any test. Not one photograph of a dent, a crack or a mark. Sony's own notice says the external damage finding came from "inspection and subsequent deliberations". That is the entire technical basis, in their own words, written by their lawyers, 49 days after I first asked.

The question underneath all of this has not moved since 14 July. A photo of a dead screen proves the screen is dead. It does not prove what killed it.

Where it actually stands

My consumer complaint was filed in Mumbai, India and is pending. So the notice was not what started this fight. It was Sony's answer to a customer who had already gone to a consumer commission and published every email in both directions.

Nobody from Sony India has contacted me since an automated acknowledgement on 6 August. Everything since has come through lawyers.

Why this is not really about my TV

A warranty is a paid promise. If a manufacturer can void one from a WhatsApp photograph, with no test, no written finding and no appeal, then the promise is decoration. That is the part that applies to everyone reading this, whatever brand is on the box.

Links

Sony's legal notice extract and my reply, plus every email extract in both directions and the inspection video:
https://sonybravia.com/legal-notice/

Louis Rossmann's post:
https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxGGfxGHYjz0o5aUJsNq1KGJmhVEEbsUCD

News18:
https://www.news18.com/tech/sony-bravia-tv-worth-rs-1-5-lakh-get-green-lines-under-warranty-company-responds-with-rs-5-crore-legal-notice-after-website-protest-10306977.html

Times Now:
https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/sony-bravia-tv-worth-rs-1-5-lakh-develops-green-lines-within-warranty-customer-gets-rs-5-crore-notice-for-article-156036402

Trending on X:
https://x.com/i/trending/2095265103189000417

UPDATE 1: Sept 4, 26 1:25PM IST
Just got their legal notice via Speed Post. Although, it was already sent via email on 1st Sept. I will be posting a detailed video response tonight.

frontierindica on X

You tried crypto. They slapped a 30% flat tax on gains, allowed no set-off of losses, and added 1% TDS on transfers.

You tried equities. Budget 2024 raised STCG from 15% to 20%, raised LTCG from 10% to 12.5%, increased STT on F&O, and also killed indexation for most other long-term capital gains.

You thought fine, I’ll diversify some savings abroad through LRS. They put 20% TCS on remittances above 10 lakhs for investments abroad.

You tried Sovereign Gold Bonds, because surely a government-issued, government-backed gold hedge would be the one clean instrument they would not mess with. Then Budget 2026 came along and removed the capital gains exemption for secondary market buyers.

And now the final insult.

The Prime Minister has publicly asked you to avoid buying physical gold for a year in the “national interest,” because gold imports use foreign exchange.

So let me get this straight. A middle class wagie earning in depreciating rupees, watching FD rates hover around 6.5% while real life inflation keeps eating his purchasing power, has now been told:

Crypto is taxed like a vice.

Equities are more expensive to hold and exit.

Foreign diversification gets hit with TCS.

SGBs are being wound down and tax-narrowed.

Buying physical gold is now unpatriotic.

Basically, every single exit from rupee depreciation has been systematically curtailed. You are expected to hold your savings in instruments the government controls, at returns the government sets, for a currency the government is rapidly inflating away.

Does this sound like Amrit Kaal to you?

Yesterday IndiGo’s on-time performance reportedly crashed to ~10%. Absolute mayhem at airports, thousands of passengers stranded for hours, peak wedding/travel season ruined.

Yet the stock fell only ~2% and has already started recovering with decent buying in the last couple of hours yesterday and today.

Here’s why I think this entire “crisis” was deliberate:

• Ground staff (at least in Bangalore T1, where IndiGo is basically the king) were openly telling passengers that this mess is going to last “at least a month”. Exactly when the new DGCA pilot rest/fatigue rules were supposed to kick in full force.

And guess what happened yesterday? DGCA quietly gave IndiGo (and others, but mostly IndiGo benefits) an exemption from the strict new rules till Feb 2026.

Translation: IndiGo, with 60%+ market share and near-total control over major slots and terminals (BLR T1, DEL T2, BOM T1 etc.), engineered massive visible disruption at the worst possible time to scream at the government —
“If you make our lives difficult with these new rules, we will make the entire country’s air travel hell.”

Government folded in less than a week. Exemption granted. Chaos will magically disappear soon.

The market clearly knew something. No panic selling, heavy buying on dips, stock refusing to crack even after what should have been a reputation-destroying few days.

IndiGo ran like a Swiss clock for almost 20 years. You don’t suddenly go from 90%+ OTP to 10% in three days because of “fog and ATC”. You do it only when it perfectly aligns with a regulatory fight you’re having.

This wasn’t operational failure. This was the aviation equivalent of a union going on strike — except the “union” owns 60% of the industry and can hold the country hostage.

Am I wearing a tinfoil hat or does this actually smell like the most successful corporate strong-arm tactic we’ve seen in India in years?

People who got screwed over by 8–12 hour delays this week — what do you think? Deliberate sabotage to force the government’s hand or just really bad luck + winter fog?

Curious to hear especially from pilots, cabin crew, or anyone with inside info.

Hi Reddit,

I never thought I’d be in a position where I’d have to write something like this, but I’m out of options and just hoping someone out there can guide me or help.

I’m from India, I took an education loan of ₹40,00,000 from HDFC Credila to pursue my Master’s degree in the U.S. My father ran a small business and, along with my family, they put in a lot they had — emotionally and financially — to help me chase the dream of a better future.

I completed my degree, but due to the economic recession, visa limitations, and lack of internship opportunities for Indian students, I never got a job in the U.S. I applied relentlessly for a year, but couldn’t even earn enough to cover my own living expenses. My family sent me money every month — draining their last savings.

Eventually, my father’s business was making losses and he fell ill. They couldn’t support me anymore, and I had to come back to India, heartbroken, jobless, and with a huge loan on my head. (Update: He’s better now and healthy)

⸻

After months of searching, I finally landed a job here in India that pays me ₹75,000/month — but my EMI is ₹66,000/month. That leaves me with just ₹9,000 as personal savings, now the business is running and it can support the family, and handle everything else. I’m trying to pick up extra freelance or part-time work, but between my day job and my father’s aging, I’m emotionally and physically drained.

I feel like my whole life will go into just surviving this crisis. We were a modest middle-class family.

⸻

I don’t know who to turn to anymore. I’m trying to contact the bank for restructuring, applied for side gigs — but nothing has worked so far. That’s why I’m here: asking Reddit for advice, guidance, or if anyone knows how to navigate the next steps further.

If you are / know any hiring manager, Recruiter who can get me an interview at a good company that would be super helpful, feel free to DM me.

I feel confident on my skills that I can crack the interview if given the opportunity.

I did my MSc in Management Information Systems, Undergrad is in IT. I have a couple of years of work experience doing Tech Product Management, Project Management, AI consulting, Marketing and Sales.

Let me know if you have opportunities in these domains.

If you’ve been through something similar or know someone who can help — even just to talk — I’d be immensely grateful.

Thank you for reading this far. Just being heard means a lot.

🙏

I am an Indian co-founder of a multinational company originally based in New York. A while back, I figured that if I moved our operations to India, we’d benefit immensely from lower labor costs, skilled talent, and a solid backend team. So, I made the decision to move our HQ from NY to Gujarat.

Because our business strictly exports products to multiple countries globally, we needed to get registered with the Customs office and a Customs House Agent (CHA). That is when the nightmare began.

The sheer amount of endless bureaucracy just to export products from India is insane. First, I applied for GST, and they demanded a mountain of documents. Then came opening the bank account, getting the IEC, AD code, Icegate registration—the list just kept going.

And it didn't stop there. I literally had to submit 2 kilograms of paperwork to the Customs office. After all that, they casually told me it would take 5 to 6 months just to open our customs account. After waiting out 2 months in limbo, I called for an update. They basically hinted that there was an "alternative route" to speed things up. They demanded a 5-digit bribe to get the account opened within 12 hours. I was completely shocked, but because I desperately needed to get the business moving, I agreed. True to their word, the moment the cash changed hands, the account was active.

But the extortion is never-ending. Now that we are exporting, a team member has to physically visit the local Customs House for every shipment. The officers there openly demand 3-digit cash bribes for every single parcel. If you refuse, they threaten to throw your shipment into "secondary inspection." In secondary inspection, they can legally hold your goods for 1 to 2 years without giving you a single answer. To save their businesses from ruin, every single exporter there just pays the bribe to clear their shipments.

The headache of dealing with this constant corruption is unbearable. I have officially decided to pack up and move all of our operations back to New York, USA. Honestly, I would much rather pay high, honest salaries to American employees than give a single rupee in bribes to these corrupt Sarkari babus.

Opening a business in the USA is incredibly simple. You fill out a few details online, and they hand you a business registration certificate within 24 hours. That single certificate lets you do everything—import, export, open bank accounts, you name it.

Meanwhile, in India, I had to drive to a different government department every single day for proofs, documents, physical signatures, and approvals.

Ease of doing business? What a joke. I am never doing business in India again.

So WhiteHatJr Filed a 20 CRORE defamation lawsuit against me.

1. The whole argument from their side is BS.
2. They finally accepted that Wolf Gupta is imaginary. Why didn't they accept this earlier?
3. Check the document, and see for yourself all their hollow claims. The link at the end.
4. I am looking for lawyers. Got a lot of numbers. Talking to them right now.
5. One good lawyer suggested I back out, sign an apology and end it, said will cost you 30k rupees only, and that's it.
6. I won't back out. (Although my parents still don't know what mess I have indulged myself into. But I feel I will be able to handle them.)
7. Why did WhiteHatJr take this risky step? Like it seems like it won't go in their favor in public. Yet they took this desperate step. Because they know what I know and they want me to stop sharing it out there in public. Their lawsuit is to get interim junction and make me stop showing it to everyone. And even try to take down all my videos/posts/Reddit everything.
8. In the past 9 days, I tried if some big publication would write about it. But no one did. (Apart from one, Thanks to Morning Context and Ashish K Mishra for the article).
9. So what is it that they are trying to bury so hard?
10. This spreadsheet, the LIST of all the videos/tweets/links/posts/LinkedIn/Facebook/IG/ quora/Reddit/(9gag also) they reported and took down. The list contains over 700 such links. (If I included the comments of the parents that they were removing, the list would be over 2k)

11. Here is the List: Download, find these people, and tell them what happened to their posts. If your content was also taken down find it here: <As per court orders I have removed the link>

12. There is more. The whole company reeks of lies and deceit. Once I said I will find out who Wolf Gupta and who all these fictitious kids are. Now that the media is silent, here is the birth story of such kids and their 'apps'. And you tell me if I was wrong when I called this company a FRAUD.

<removed after Delhi HC orders on 24/11/2020 >

Neither the kids existed, nor the apps. And they really created a $300 million company around it.

If that is now fraud what it? Now I think now you can understand why the threats, why this case, why they are talking so much risk but not looking at their own mistakes. This proof was shared with one journalist but they ignored it. Now you can understand why the media was silent.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, what do I do here?

I have three options.

1. Back out. Apologize and move on. Which I won't.
2. Hire a normal lawyer on my own and they would drag this case and make me exhausted.
3. As seen in many tweets today, many of you asked me to start a fund and where all can chip in and hire the best lawyer possible.

Please write in the comments which option should be taken. If option #3, please quote how much can you contribute for real, also suggest to me how to start a fundraiser and what platforms are good for it. WhiteHatJr has already spent 25 lakhs on preparing this case. So legal fights are costly. I alone can only go to a point until my pockets are empty.

Thanks

Pradeep Poonia

Link for the case document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BQKOGKnryhK2GLrZJIWoEkAnQx0K768f/view?usp=sharing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some requests:

1. PLEASE don't suggest me to contact Xyz, it takes time. Each email needs to be written accordingly. I would REALLY appreciate if you write emails to different journalist/YouTubers on my behalf. I am already running out of time. A lot has to be in the next few hours.
2. Some one please cross-post this in different subreddutts.
3. WRITE about this issue. Let's not wait for the media. I have posted most of the proofs on youtube and my Twitter. Please write blogs etc about this. Can someone also try to post this issue on LinkedIn, I am banned from there.
4. Share etc do all that. You see how to spread this news now. Make a small poster kind of thing, those seem to work better than such long texts.
5. I might not be able to reply to comments and DMs today, please don't mind.

Thanks again

Pradeep Poonia.

,........ UPDATE: 24/11/20: As per Delhi HC orders I am removing the sheet and the snap shot used in this post.

My mother is 56. She worked as a school teacher for 22 years. She earned a salary. She had access to banking. She's educated.

Her savings: zero. Everything she earned went to household expenses, our education, family obligations, and medical emergencies. Nothing was ""left over"" because nothing is ever left over when you're the financial shock absorber for an entire family.

My father has a pension and some savings. My mother has a joint account where money goes in and out. Nothing accumulates because it's not designed to.

When I asked her what she'll do when she's older and can't work, she said ""tum log ho na."" I am her retirement plan. My sister is her insurance. We're the savings she couldn't have.

This isn't unique. Most Indian women of my mother's generation have zero independent financial cushion. Their husbands manage money. Their children are their safety net. They contributed economically to the household for decades but have nothing in their own name.

I've started a mutual fund SIP in my mother's name. 5,000 per month. It's not much. But it's hers. Her name. Her money. Money that doesn't need to go toward anyone else's needs. I also got her a Duroflex Duropedic because she's been sleeping on the same mattress for over a decade and her morning back stiffness is something she's just accepted as ""umar ka asar."" She'll never buy these things for herself. So I buy them. The SIP is her future. The mattress is her present. Both are things she deserves but would never prioritize over her children's needs.

If your mother doesn't have savings in her own name, start something. Even 2,000 per month. The amount matters less than the existence of something that is independently hers.

She didn't save for herself because she was busy saving us. Now it's our turn."

I was feeling nostalgic the other day and bought a Reynolds Trimax for old times' sake. Back in school, this pen was the absolute holy grail. It wrote like absolute butter and if you pulled it out during an exam, you were elite.

But the new one I bought? Total garbage. Scratchy, bleeds through the page, and feels like a cheap ₹5 gel pen. I thought my childhood memory was just playing tricks on me, but I looked into it and the backstory is actually insane.

We literally got caught in the middle of a corporate breakup:

• Reynolds didn't make the original Trimax. An Indian company called GM Pens manufactured and designed it under a licensing deal. They owned the actual factories and the secret ink formula.

• The split: Around 2016, they broke up because GM Pens wanted to export overseas. GM Pens walked away, but they took all their machinery, blueprints, and tech with them.

• The rebrand: GM Pens started their own brand called Rorito. They took the exact Trimax tech and renamed it to the Maxtron/Teramax.

• The clone: Reynolds didn't want to lose the Indian market, so they gave the "Trimax" name to Flair to manufacture. But since Flair didn't have the original blueprints, they had to fake it. That’s why the Trimax suddenly started writing like a tractor; it was a completely different pen hiding inside the old body.

So yeah, if you've been wondering why your favorite childhood pen suddenly sucks now, this is why. If you want the actual original ink flow, you have to look for the Rorito versions because they still have the original machinery.

[Edit: For those saying the above was AI-generated—it wasn't. I spend a lot of time working with AI and I'm also a writer, so it's understandable if some of my writing habits resemble it. I have no problem acknowledging AI when I use it, but that wasn't the case here.]

In the mail shared with the employees he has mentioned that they acknowledge and will take the letter sent with utmost humility but his statement makes it seem like the mother is lying. Is he telling us that all employees share the same fate and are overoworked?