On September 7th, I booked an Indian ticket (Flight IC 940) using ezeego1.com (Booking Ref. No.: EZR-2007-89284/A) for traveling on 12th November, from Delhi to Hyderabad. The ticket which was bought under an offer from ezeego1.com and SBI Credit Cards cost me 3215 Rs.
On the morning of 12th November, something that I had always read about and heard happening with others, happened with me. Indian had done overboarding on their plane! Simply put they had sold more tickets than the capacity of the plane. I was shocked. This kind of thing which was always associated with low cost airlines, specially Air Deccan (now Deccan) was being done by state owned full-fledged airline. I was not alone however, there were others who were dumped even though they had purchased tickets. Passengers were shouting for information and their boarding passes and both of them were hard to come by. Indian officials were deliberately absent from the counter and one official appeared after some time only to tell us that the plane was on runway and noway we could be accommodated in this flight.
He said that Indian would accommodate us on the next flight which was after 2 hours. However I had a training to attend in Hyderabad and I didn't want to wait two more hours on the airport. I asked him for refund, which he agreed to give most willingly. He signed on my ticket and told that my money would be refunded through my travel agents (in my case ezeego1.com). I had to go to cancellation counter and get my Flight PNR No. set to status 'Denied Boarding'. Here I made a mistake which could have delayed the refund process if not jeopardize it totally; I had taken official's signature on the ticket but there was no official stamp from the airline!
And as (bad) luck would have it, that morning (which was the Monday after Diwali weekend) there was no seat available in ANY flight except SpiceJet, who were selling it more than 6000! Immediately I cursed my short tempered decision of not taking the next Indian flight. I was just going to pay the double of my flight cost. But I had no other option and had to board the SpiceJet flight. I reached Hyderabad at 11 am only to be greeted by my manager's SMS that training had been postponed to next week!
Now began my efforts of getting refund from ezeego1.com. I followed the steps mentioned on their website and sent them the scanned copy of the ticket, signed by Indian Official at the Delhi Airport at email address specified by them: cancellation@ezeego1.com. (According to their rules, the ticket should have been stamped by flight official from the source airport, which my ticket was lacking. And I was afraid of this!)
I got no response from their side and mailed again at complaints@ezeego1.com telling them the whole case and also at enquiry@ezeego1.com asking them the status of my complaint. No responses again.I also filled the cancellation request form given on the site and got an automated reply acknowledging my request. After this a few days later I talked to their customer care person who asked me to fill the cancellation
form again (even though I told her that I have filled it and got acknowledgment also). She told that it will take 21 days to refund the money and I waited for about a month again after filling the form again. Talking to their customer care is an achievement in itself since you keep on getting message 'All out executives are busy. Please hold the call'. I held the call for 15 minutes maximum before my patience ran out. (During those days only I read a complaint in TOI, Hyderabad that he was made to hold the call for 80 minutes!!! However now this problem has reduced to great extent.)
When I got no response again I talked to the customer care and repeated whole story and was promised that I would be contacted in 48 hours by ezeego1.com, but that did not happen. The same thing happened when I
called them up again on Friday 21/12/07. I sent them a mail again threatening of dragging them to court, but got no reply.
Finally I registered my complaint with CORE (Consumer Online Resources and Empowerment) center, telling them whole story. An endless wait started again as CORE website doesn't give you facility to track your complaint. Then on Jan 17th, a mail addressed to "The Managing Director, Ezeego1 Travels & Tours Pvt. Ltd" and copied to me appeared in my mail box.
And when I had nearly forgotten this mail, on Feb 2nd a mail came from an Ezeego1.com executive informing me about refund of the money!
Finally I had succeeded in getting my own money back.
PS: Just now I got a call from ezeego1.com. The executive had read this review and inquired if my issue got resolved and apologized for the inconvenience.
Good. But I would have liked if they were responsive when I needed them most.
10 comments:
seems like you had a taste of macabre !!! - nikhil
Ashish Nema mailed to me:
First of all ,congrats to get ur own money back, no matter after how much time taken.
I was undergo the same kind of experience,when i paid my Hutch mobile bill by credit card thru the service provide by mobile service provider to pay bill by cell only, by mistake instead of making payment of Rs.769 ,i made it Rs 7690.
Now everyday when i made calls to Hutch ,they simply told me that the amount is adjusted in the forthcoming bills,or u can talk to the credit card company only they r responsible for refund.
But,after fight n efforts of 2-3 months long ,i got my amount back.
So, I know the happiness of getting own money back ,is such the tedious task nowadays.
heheheeeeee...every1 has such experiences...i fought from US coz hutch ppl were putting charges in my bill for international roaming rental...whereas in my corporate connection it was free...later on we (hutch & me) realized that i was listed as an employee of tata infomedia limited instead of tcs and tats y ws being charged for the roaming...then started my endless mails and calls and threats...(they said that from now on we would not charge romaing...but the real fight was about what had already been charged...i had provided all my employment proofs)...but finally...they refunded the money...so ya...it feels awesome when you get ur own money back (i guess the challenge and fights make it more savory)...but i really wish that u had the trng...atleast fayda to hota jaldi pahunchne ka :))
Every one who has read this blog and talked back has had a horror story to tell!
This is not surprising considering the low level of consumer awareness in India. And not to mention that we are lazy to complain most of the time!
Hi Asty
This was really a bad experience which u have faced, I too have faced the same exp. but in different manner. This was with Reliance Broadband Internet.
My internet connection was not wrking one day, then I gave them 20-25 times call but all in vein. Atlast I call them to terminate the connection , and it took atleast 2 months to terminate it completely.And bill was summing up for every month but for no usage. Calling a customer care is like holding ur phone and getting irritated by tht repeated voice.
What to say all abt this system... Atlast customer get frustated.
Thanks for ur experience, we will keep this in mind if we cancel the flight and get the stamp of official in our ticket !
-Rohit
So true...Guess everybody has one or the other experience of the same kind...
Recently even i got fake entry in my SBI credit card bill for some 'Betamax VOIP Credit Cologne'. When searched on net...got the result that these entries are fraud entries -
http://www.myvoipprovider.com/option,com_myblog/show,betamax-voip-credit-cologne---fraudulent-credit-card-charges.html/Itemid,130/
Already in talks with SBI guys. Filled up the dispute form and mailed to them. Waiting for them to take action.
Nice write-up abhishek...keep up the good work.
~Swats:)
I booked a return ticket from Delhi to Kulu and back through ezeego1 and I opted for Kingfisher airlines. Total cost came to 44922 of which I was entitled to a cash back of Rs 13080. This is according to their own executives after I called up customer care and enquired. When I had satisfied myself after calling them 3- 4 times I booked my ticket only to be given some 6000 as cash back. The rest they say they will not give as the offer is not valid or per card the max limit is Rs 10,000 or you can make only one transcation per card etc etc. They are resorting to every trick and excuse not to pay. This is a classic case of online fraud that is being commited right under the govt nose and no one is taking notice. These people only advertise 50% flat cash back on ICICI platinum but they dont keep their word. No one should trust these people. The modus operandi is simple. You book once and they will give you your refund but now that they have gained your confidence and you book for a higher amount they will simply refuse.
I am also going through the same horrible experience with ezeego1.
I tried to book an air ticket via ICICI Net Banking from Bangalore to Delhi on June 30th 2008 for travel on 14th Aug 2008. At the end of booking, it showed the message "Transaction failed" and no ticket was booked but still the ticket amount of Rs. 5718 was deducted from my bank account. When i informed the ezeego1 customer care about this, they told me that i will get my refund in 7 working days. I again called after 10 days, and they apologized and told that I have to again mail my info like Bank acct. no. etc. to another email id. I did that and mailed to every id available on their website. I was again told to wait for 3 working days.
When i called next week, yes you are right, i got the same reply to wait for 3 more working days. I had no alternative but to wait.
Next time i called, they said that their accounts department will handle this and some Chaitali Bagwe mailed to my id asking for the details again. I sent her the details and the long wait started again.
On numerous occasions, i was also told that they would call me but i never received any call from them. Next week, i was told that they cannot locate my transaction and it might have gone in junk and i was asked to mail them my bank's Account Statements and was told that they will call me to update me on the status. But like always, i had to call them again. This time they told me that the file format of the bank statements i sent was not recognizable. Now this was really pathetic, they cannot even open a .zip file.
So i had to fax them my statements. I am told that i will surely get my refund back this monday(1st Sep 2008). This all has happened till date, 60 days have passed and i am still waiting for my refund.
I wished i had read reviews about ezeego1 before committing mistake of booking my ticket using their website.
Rajat,
I advise you to file a complaint about this on whitelibra.com
I have also a same story with ezeego1 like above.
I had booked a filght ticket to Jammu from Delhi with the Booking ref: EZR-2011-774888/A. Unfortunately ticket is not genarated and payment is already made through credit card. they automatically cancelled the ticket. I had contacted several time but till the date I didn't receive my money. when i contact manger or supervisors , their commened is " sir you will receive money by today itself".
Pls advise how to reclaim this money
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