Hi,
This is regarding an ecommerce transaction in India with possibly
India's largest ecommerce website - irctc.co.in which is a monopoly,
the only authorized online reseller of Indian Railway tickets.
Cleartrip and any other websites which offer the same service are
downstream from IRCTC and offer enhanced services with additional fees
to make up for the deficiencies of IRCTC, a Government of India
enterprise.
I canceled an e-tatkal ticket of nearly Rs. 1500 that resulted in zero
rupees refund. The IRCTC website does not tell you in advance the
amount of refund you are eligible to get. In fact there is no
automated way to find out via the website the amount of cancellation
charges on any ticket. Traditional railway booking offices do not
perform cancellation of etickets. And the IRCTC 24 hour call center
isn't really available out of office hours - no one picks up when you
call at night. What's worse, the call center isn't a toll free number.
In fact, it is a Delhi area code number that gets pretty expensive to call if
you are having a detailed discussion over long distance STD.
Therefore my request of IRCTC was that they at least reissue the
cancelled ticket to me - since there was no warning in advance that I
would get no money back. After all, it is illogical that anyone would
take the trouble of canceling a ticket for no refund.
The IRCTC call center agent I spoke to refuses, and maintains that I
should have been familiar with the "rules".
That's hardly a defense, since the rules are hard to understand, and
are poorly explained. When modern technology clearly allows IRCTC to
inform consumers of their charges upon cancellation, it has been
negligent in not publishing that information to consumers on demand in
advance of the cancellation.
Is there anyway I can get a remedy short of a consumer court?
Cheeni
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