| Address: | Country Club Hospitality & Holidays Limited 6-3-1219/A, Country Club Kool, Begumpet, Hyderabad 500 016, 500016 |
One fine day, we got a call and was told that we have won some holiday vouchers and other gifts. We are required to attend a presentation of around 45 mins and that's it - this is what we were told before the event. Well, that was not all.
They ask you to come with your partner, do not let you use mobile or internet and expect you to make decision on the spot.
I still can't believe that I got into this mess. Not to lie, but this was not the first time that we went to such an event. We have attended such events in past and did avail free accommodation from such vouchers once in past. But we were always determined and confident that we are not going to take any memberships and they are good only for free.The reasons in general being:
1. They bind you to plan your holidays at limited locations in much advance.
2. You will hardly get the properties in your desired location when you actually plan to visit there.
3. You feel trapped mentally and this makes your vacations worse. You think more to plan and spend lots of energy/time to make most out of this membership. You end up paying more and having less and limited fun. In many cases, people end up not utilizing these plans.
Even after knowing all of the above points when we sat at the table for presentation by one of the Country Club representatives, credit to their skills (or it could just be a coincidence) that they offered us three below things which we had in mind and are always interested in:
1. Gym membership for both o[censored]s (in Gold's, Snap Fitness, Talwalkars or equivalent gym) for all the years of club membership. Since me and my wife both are fitness freak and have already been taking gym memberships every year for few years now, this option was of much interest to us.
2. A foreign trip (either to Philippines, Dubai, Malaysia, Singapore or few more options) including air travel, sight seeing and all expenses other than shopping/personal expenses.
3. All of it at 0% EMI for 24/36 months. This was an extremely important factor for me as I would not have even thought of taking it if payment was to be done in lumpsum (was not in position to afford it at all at that point)
They quoted some Rs 1, 75, 000 and then finally settled on Rs 1, 49, 000 for 10 years holidays+club membership and
Offered 1 week complimentary, making it 2 weeks holidays plan a year.
Offered 1 week of foreign trip all inclusive.
Offered one more holiday voucher for 4-5 nights to be consumed within 6 months or so.
Club membership/access to all functions/celebrities’ events at their clubs etc.
Remember, we already have the free vouchers for which we actually came.
I tried to stick to basics and since it looked too intuitive to believe, I did some very basic maths rather than believing on all lucrative things. I thought if I forget everything (their properties, their service, availability), gym membership for two people will cost (Rs 8000 * 2 people * 10 years) Rs 1, 60, 000; Philippines or Dubai trip would cost us at least Rs 1, 20, 000 for a week (all inclusive); so what could be better than paying for these two things in EMIs at 0% for 36 months.
This is where I made a mistake, I did not consider how can they offer such a thing (actually I did but it was a bad moment that I overlooked everything else). I still tried my best to validate and read through all the documents they made me to sign. There was one point which mentioned that I can request cancellation to this membership within 10 days and a nominal charge of Rs 3800 would be cut and rest will be reversed.(As per the 34th point in the CLUB AND VACATION SALE AGREEMENT, there shall be a cool off period of 10 days from the date of signing of this Agreement wherein member can discontinue the agreement by paying a nominal administration charges of Rs. 3800/- to the company. After deduction of the aforesaid amount (Rs. 3800/-) remaining amount would be refunded to the member.
) I considered this point as my fall back plan and went ahead with swiping my credit card. It was HDFC and CITI bank credit cards and as everyone knows that we get a call from CC department when a big transaction happens on our card. I got the call from bank and he asked if I want to get this amount converted to EMIs. I replied that merchant has already offered me 0% EMI on this transaction (Please note that bank calls are recorded and unintentionally I made a point here that I was promised 0% EMIs by merchant).
Now everything done and dusted, we came back and slept well since we did not yet realize that we have made a blunder
I have been writing emails continuously from past 3 months and all I get to hear is an automated response as below:
Dear Concern,
Greeting of the day,
Thank you for reaching customer care Country Club Holidays and Hospitality Ltd, we will be addressing your concern at the earliest based on the Priority of the complaint.
Further you can reach us on[protected]. Between 10:30 AM- 6:30 PM Monday To Saturday
Sales person(Punith Cherry) and his manager(Manjunathan) are not responding to my phone calls.
Still waiting for their response and hoping to get back our hard earned money.
Any help/suggestions would be appreciated!!!
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K. Bharathi