Oyo Rooms — Payment taken but hotel rooms not given

Address:

Capital O 11079 Hotel Prestige, Paradise, Secunderabad

I, Sqn Ldr Westly Benetto, having a Defence Salary Account with SBI Subroto park, New Delhi with account No [protected]. On 27 Oct 2022, I booked 4 rooms through OYO portal in OYO Capital ‘O’ 11079 Hotel Prestige, 1-7-206, Paradise Road, Hyderabad, for 3 nights i.e., from 09 to 12 Nov 2022.I paid an advance of Rs 9, 331/- out of a total amount of Rs 26659/- and received a confirmation message of WhatsApp. The booking was done for my guests coming to attend my wedding at Hyderabad on 11 Nov 2022.
On 09 Nov 2022, I travelled from Trichy to Hyderabad along with with my parents and 30 other relatives and landed Hyderabad airport at 1155 AM. As soon as I landed at Hyderabad and was collecting my luggage, I received a call from a person claiming to be from OYO with Mob No [protected] asking me to pay the balance amount of Rs 17328/- to confirm the booking. I requested the person to give me some time as I have just landed at Hyderabad. Inspite of my request, I received multiple calls from the same number pestering me to pay the amount within next 10 minutes saying it has to be done before 12 pm. I again requested him to give me some more time as I had to manage 30 of my relatives, who came to attend my wedding. He again kept calling me, and I had to tell him to cancel the booking if it was so urgent. He was quiet for some time and again started calling me. To get rid of the nuisance, I said I would pay Rs 10, 000/- and the balance would be cleared on checking in, at the hotel. He then sent me an account number on Wattsapp with OYO symbol as the profile picture and with all the other details as received by me at the time of initial booking and confirmation. I paid Rs 10, 000/- through Gpay and sent him the screen shot through Wattsapp. The account number to which Rs 10, 000/- was transferred is [protected] and IFS Code is HDFC0000368, account of Hotel Prestige.
He again called and said that since I had not mentioned my name and booking reference, the system couldn’t identify and is not accepting the payment. He asked me to pay another Rs 9, 999/- mentioning my name and booking reference and also mentioned that the previous amount of Rs 10, 000/- would be refunded immediately. Since I was in a hurry and lot of stress looking after all my relatives, I again paid Rs 10, 000/- into the same account through Gpay and sent him the screen shot mentioning my name and booking reference. The person called me again and informed me that he had asked me to pay Rs 9, 999/-, instead I had paid Rs 10, 000/-, hence the system is not accepting payments of similar amounts. I thought the matter is settled and sat in the car of my father-in-law who had come to pick us up, I called up the person to check about the status of my payments, since I did not get any further confirmation, to which he stated that there was some GST error and could not confirm the payment. I lost my patience and asked him to refund the complete amount and cancel the booking. He then requested me to pay one last amount of Rs 8, 399/- to solve the GST error and send the screen shot. Since my guests were on their way, and I did not want to embarrass my guests, I paid Rs 8, 399/- and sent him the screen shot.
In the evening, when I reached the hotel along with my guests, to occupy the rooms, I was informed by the hotel guys that I had complete the payments to get the rooms to which I showed them the screen shots of the payments made through Gpay. The hotel guy told me that no payments have been received by them. I then requested them to atleast give me 1 room since I had already paid an advance of Rs 9, 331/-, to which they flatly refused to give me 1 room also. I then contacted my bank to which I was informed to contact the nearest SBI branch, which was of no help because I was informed that the matter can be resolved by the home branch only which is in Delhi. I had come to Secunderabad for my wedding hence got busy with all the functions and returned to Chennai on the 14 Nov 2022.
Screen shots of all the transaction and conversations are attached.