Harassed by Club Mahindra:
A month back I saw an advertisement of ClubMahindra Holidays (CMS) in one of the news papers. This made me call CMH and inquire about the membership. On the very same day I had a representative from ClubMahindra come to my residence discuss the membership. The purpose of getting this membership was to avail an international holiday option that was scheduled in December.
The name of the sales executive who came for the meeting was Anurag Srivastava. I explained my requirements and gave him the dates when I wished to travel for my holiday, to which he agreed and mentioned that I wont be having any issues with the reservations. This period would be September. My travel period and location preference is as follows:
Date: 17-Dec till 01-Jan
Place: Malaysia & Bali (Indonesia)
During the meeting Anurag mentioned that the resorts offered by ClubMahindra are at least Four Star (****) properties at all locations. Later he did offer me a membership from RCI for a period of 2 years at not cost (Inclusive with the ClubMahindra Package). Even for RCI he mentioned that the properties with RCI are either 4 star (****) or Five Star (****) properties. I relied on his talks and went ahead with the membership. After our discussion I filled in few forms and paid the initial 10% to block my membership. He confirmed that he’ll get my membership done immediately if I make 50 % of the payments on an immediate basis. I made sure that I made the 50 % payment with a week or 2.
On 01-Oct I received a mail from ClubMahindra stating my membership (2047192) details and my offer details (membership details are attached for your reference). A week later I also received my membership details from RCI.
Then came a real surprise when I called RCI to do my bookings for Malaysia, and when they mentioned that the resorts they have in that location are very standard resorts and not even the ones that can be rated a 2 star (**). I was taken aback and this made me contact ClubMahindra member relations team (Rupal-Member Relations Executive). The member relations team now mentions that RCI is not a member entity. It is no ways related to ClubMahindra. I tried to make her understand, however she was not ready to accept her mistake. To this I have the following questions:
How can ClubMahindra sell RCI membership as a package deal if they do not take the responsibility of RCI?
How can ClubMahindra talk about RCI plans or even RCI when they do not take any responsibility of RCI’s properties?
Let me also tell you that the sales people associated with your Brand only pick up calls when they want to sell something. A member in need is of no importance to them. Anurag, failed to call me and failed to pick my calls at a number of instances. Even Rupal for that matter was of no good. I appreciate the fact that at least the RCI representative was honest enough to let me know about the resorts.
I’m getting married in December and the package I had taken was towards my Honeymoon package. However due to such irresponsible people, my holidays have been ruined. The money that I had saved for my honeymoon is now invested in this useless package.
I request you to kindly look into my case on a priority basis and relieve me from this membership. I would be obliged if my complete membership fee is returned. Till now I have not utilised anything and neither have I availed any free offers from ClubMahindra. I would also request you to kindly take necessary action against such people so that you don’t come across another Prashant Pandey. Till now I have paid more than INR 135, 000 towards the ClubMahindra membership.
Later I wrote to Mr. Ramanathan and his intervention atleast made the member relations team to give me a call and understand the issue. Later I received a call from Ms. Kainaz and Mr. Farook. They tried to convince me about this membership being good, but they failed to realise my situation at every instance. They were just trying to be the sales retension people. They later assured me to get back to me within the next 2 days.
We had a talk on 01-Dec and then technically they should have reverted by 03-Dec. However that did not happen and I gave a call on 07-Dec. After calling them for more than 3 hours I got through Ms. Kainaz who very calmly informed me that they cannot provide me with a refund as the refund could only be claimed within 10 days of joining the membership.
At the time of membership, I had asked them about the exit procedure to which Anurag replied that this situation would never come in as the services they offer are five star services. I hope that by now most of you would have understood what five star services are.
I need your help and would request you all who have been treated like this to come forward and share your thoughts on how do we teach a lesson to these guys who talk aloud of their services at the time of sales and then disappear once the customer is in need.
You may reach me on [email protected]
Regards,
Prashant Pandey
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