I have been a Club Mahindra Holidays member since 2003 and have been promised one free Holiday at the time of joining. I paid a hefty amount as upfront fee (full amount) then for a RED season membership.
At that time there was no mention of Annual Membership Fee at all.
After one year each year they called me up to seek permission to charge Annual Membership Fee on my credit card.
I dont know how they could have charged the amount to my credit card without any written confirmation?
In the past 7 years of membership the annual membership kept rising from 5167/- to Rs. 8545/- for 2010.
All these were charged to my credit card account and I had consented over the phone that they can charge it to account.
The marketing representative never mentioned that the un utilized Holidays will lapse if it exceeds 21 days.
In the 7 years I have utilized only 24 days against entitlement of 56 days.
Each time you want to go on a Holiday they tell you that all dates are booked and offer you some alternatives which you may or may not be able to take. And then they tell us that if you dont use the Holidays they will lapse?
As per their original commitment I can "bank" these Holidays and use them when I wish to.
They was never any mention that you must utilize your Holidays failing which they will lapse.
During these entire 7 years I have never received any communication (phone or written) other than for annual membership fee.
A few weeks ago I received a "Holiday Utilization Statement" from them where in they have stated that instead of 31 days I have only 14 days available due to a rule wherein no member is allowed to accumulate more than 21 days of Holiday.
When I raised this issue they keep writing to me that they will revert in 48 hrs and write back saying that they are following the rules.
They also told me that this rule was in force since 1996 but they started implementing it since 2008!! This was because they wanted to give us sufficient time to utilize the Holidays.
I have been writing to them every week and they come back with the same response.
They informed me by email yesterday that their records show that they had communicated to me that they will be implementing the Holiday Lapsing rule from 2008!! I had no communication from Club Mahindra other than the telephonic reminder for the Annual Membership Fee.
Today I have decided to take this to the consumer court and file a case for unfair business practices, misrepresentation by marketing personnel, suppression or non communication of information regarding lapsing of Holidays and wrongful claims that notices were sent to us.
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