Ibibo Group / Goibibo — Mis-advertising and misbehave

Address:	110029
Website:	www.goibibo.com

On 17th august 2016, i got a promotional email from goibibo which says i will get rs.1200 cashback when i book ticket through their mobile app and make payment with sbi credit card. The offer was available for only that day between 2pm to 10pm. I checked the offer detail page: https://www.goibibo.com/offers/gokarde-wed/ and found i satisfy all conditions and hence booked 2 domestic tickets from dibrugarh to new delhi. It was a multi flight trip with indigo and jet airways. The ad said that there was a promocode to avail this offer.

But when i tried to book the tickets i didn't found a box to enter the promocode. I didn't want to miss the offer and i thought although i don't enter the code, because i was using a mobile app and my sbi credit card between 2-10pm, i will get the cashback somehow from goibibo. So i booked the tickets without entering the promocode. One cannot expect that everyone will understand that no promocode mean no cashback. Because rest all fulfills each and every criteria.

After i made the payment, i though i should inform goibibo about this issue, which might be a technical bug in their app and obviously i want to informed about my booking to get the cashback.

A customer care agent replied me in email that as i booked a multi itinerary trip, this offer is not valid. That mean the cashback is applicable only on single flight booking. But i read the term & conditions and asked the agent whether it is mentioned anywhere in the promo, app or website that this offer is not valid for multi itinerary. They said no. So in the next email i mentioned that as this promo is incomplete and it might misguide other customer (Like i was), i will raise it consumer forum, so that everyone knows about it and don't make a mistake like me.

In the next day i got a call from one goibibo customer agent and he apologized for the confusion and he said he completely understands that it's an issue from their end, they will forward the issue to the technical team. And he wanted to offer me a gift voucher of rs.5000 for different companies. It is completely understandable why he offered me the same. But i denied that offer and said him that if they can give my cashback then that's fine, otherwise leave it.

From the next day, i started to get calls in very polite voices and emails from different agents almost everyday. Even sometimes got calls at night. They apologized me for what happened and informed me that they are working on it. Their technical team was working on it and they need some more time to resolve my query.

After that, i almost forgot about it because of the busy daily life. But few days ago i got a call from another agent with a tougher voice than earlier, that they can't resolve the issue and he directly blamed me this time that it was my mistake. When i didn't see the promocode box, i should stop there and it is self explanatory that even if you fulfill all conditions, but no promocode mean no offer. Is it really acceptable??? That is their website and they know how it works and what conditions does it have. But can you really expect a customer to imagine all this??? We had a long discussion and he was very rude. I didn't understand where are those polite customer agents this time who started the call with "we are sorry and we can understand your concern" type of sentence? I guess this time they try to solve the issue in "other way". I felt like that guy was in goibibo to solve such cases at the end.

Today, i got an email from them that - "when ever company launches an offer, it is on company's prerogative to give that offer across products or to specify the part of product."

I am surprised, how the tone and emails just turned suddenly. Once they were saying sorry with polite voices. But now it's a complete different scenario. Even they started to blaming me what just happened.

In foreign countries there are some strict laws against it. But in india i am not sure how is it. So i don't know what action will be taken against them, but i think it's really an important issue.

1. When you advertise you should advertise it completely so that general customers don't get confused. There are 1.25 billion citizens in india and you can't expect they all will understand your strategy even if you don't explain it properly.

2. You must respect other time and money.

3. You can't blame others just to hide your fault.

I am not taking any grudge or something against goibibo. Even after this incident i booked flight with them. But i just want to mention that i really didn't liked what just happened. I want customers to know about this.

Plus i would like to forward this message to higher managerial level and want to inform them, how people in customer level are actually dealing them.

Hope to hear a positive reply.

Thank you.