Indian Railways Online booking…Money disappears between Railways & Payment Gateway of ICICI Credit Card.
Recently on August 14 I tried to book the tickets for my family on the net. At first it appears a great site and it has all the ingredients to become popular with the Netzens. But my experience is such that I am frightened of the use the net. What happened on that day? I registered with the Railway site with my E Mail and other particulars. I attempted twice for booking to Goa (Madgaon) by Train no. 0111 Konkan Kanya Express for 12th Nov.(Full 90 days in advance) journey date on 3AC. All the seats were available on that day. So I listed the names of the passengers, got the availability, fare from the site, entered my credit card details. The result! It indicated a failed transaction. I did not understand why? The net was fast. The traffic was not high? But to my surprise on checking I found the money is debited from my account. The railways informed me about the failed transaction through E Mail. And then sent me a mail to inform me of crediting account of refund in full. But to my surprise on checking the money is not credited in the account. When I informed that the money is not credited. The Railway promptly asked me to send the proof by way of scanned print of statement of account or the screen shot of the statement. I took me lot of effort to generate the statement and then scan it and sent to the Railways through E Mail. But still no refund.
This did not happen once but twice. This resulted in about Rs 8000/- Struck with the Railways.
The bank is unable to help. The railways are not helping. Where shall I go? How to get refund. I am a retired senior citizen. Can anybody help me in getting my money?
Now I am frightened to transact through the net specially the Railways. I am using the net to transact for many years but never had this type of experience.
I warn the user of the Indian railways online reservation to take this experience in to account before transacting through the net.
How the Railways have the heart to ask me the proof of money not deposited in my account! On the other hand they shall furnish the proof of transaction of refunding the money in my account.
Secondly everyone is not fortunate to get the statement of the transactions so promptly and scan. Will they go by this proof and refund? They have to check at their end and give proof of refund transaction!
Why there should be a failed transaction at the first place when net is very fast? And why the money is debited from the account when there is failed transaction of booking tickets? Does not gel!
Booking Indian Railways Tickets Online is generally not recommended because most of the times the Indian railways website goes down and the customers lose their money because the payment gateway approves the funds and while transferring the data from their end to the railways website, the connection gets cut. This has happened to me twice while when I used my ICICI Credit card. Both the times the transactions failed because the connection could not be established and later we get a message saying that the payment made shall be refunded. In fact they ask to prove that the payment is not refunded. Negative proof? Will they accept the proof and refund based on the proof furnished in the form of scanned statement? Or screen shot (& what is that? Does anybody know?) Does it not involve delays, time, money & effort to prove. There is no fault at any time of the customer like me. I am treated like a ball being shuffled between the bank & the railways. No body takes the responsibility. Eventually the money of customer is struck between two players. I do not have unlimited resources to go to pillar & post to get the refund. They care less about the customers. While they have cutomer care E mail service!
There were recent claims from the Indian railways that the online tickets booking has increased from 3% to 10% but wonder how many passengers are losing their hard earned money because of their useless backend software. Even if you check out the official railways website its full of ads which might be reason of slowing.
The Airlines websites are mostly meant for business and customers which is the reason they have professional looking websites and also offer guides and tutorials on how to book a ticket, but the Indian railways website offers less information and more ads. May be if these guys upgrade their whole system they could make a lot more money from the online ticket booking service than what they make from these ads.
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