[Resolved]  Akbar Travels — visa services

On 7th dec 2018, for procuring dubai visa for me and family, i initiated a debit card transfer of 30000 rs to akbar travels. They confirmed they didn't receive the money. My bank (Icici) told me that money has gone from their end and they asked me to raise a service request to confirm whether they received money or not and to get a refund. They also told me the estimated time for such a confirmation would be 35 days. Of course i could not wait for 35 days as my travel was coming up in about 10 days. So i procured a confirmation mail from akbar travels stating that they would refund my money in case they receive same. On this confirmation and owing to urgent need i transferred another 30000 to akbar travels. They confirmed receipt of same immediately and i got my visa in 5 days.

I did not get any further updates from my bank till 22nd of january, where upon they informed me that my claim was declined by the merchant. So i contacted akbar travels again to ask them to refund my money. After several miscommunications they finally confirmed back to me stating that they have initiated a refund to me and shared me a screenshot of same. And that i should wait for 5-7 working days for it to get credited.

I again waited for 5 working days and checked back with them when i did not receive my money. They merely insisted again that they have initiated refund and i should check with my bank. My bank in turn told me they can’t do anything if the money has not come to my account and only akbar travels can confirm this. I checked with them again and akbar travels asked me for my bank statement to prove that i have indeed not received the money back from them. I send this to akbar travels and they reverted saying that from my account i have transferred 30000 to them and i have got visa in return for that. For any other queries contact my bank.
So
1. If visa was for the money (30000) transferred from my account then, what did i get for the money (30000) transferred from my husband credit card?
2. Why did you initiate a charge back to my account and send me screenshot of same as success if you did not owe me any money?
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Mar 17, 2019
Complaint marked as Resolved 
Akbar Travels customer support has been notified about the posted complaint.
Verified Support
Feb 04, 2019
Akbar Travels Customer Care's response
Dear Ma'am,

As mentioned in our earlier correspondences, please note the 2nd charge was never relecting in our records, we request you to kindly contact the concerned bank and check the same with them. Please note the amount that was relecting in our systems, we have already issued visa services against them.

Thanks and Regards,

Team AT
Feb 18, 2019
Updated by preeti_mohan
Please note that this issue got resolved only yesterday. They finally confirmed to me that the money was stuck at their payment gateway PayU owing to their own negligence, where by they did not give a timely response to the payment gateway, when the gateway enquired them on the charge back claimed.

Finally they agreed that they would get back the money from PayU and do an NEFT transfer on the money from their bank to my bank.

Remember that we finally got to this commitment on 5th February 2019, ie 2 months after I transferred them the money on 7th Dec 2018.This happened after I had to chase them with innumerable phone calls, intervention from my bank people and about 100 back and forth emails and messages

They collected my account details from me for the NEFT transaction on 10th Feb and confirmed to me on 11th Feb that they got the money from PayU and have already initiated my refund. But they asked me to wait again for six days.

For any bank, adding a beneficiary for NEFT transaction takes 12-24 hrs and a transfer itself will get credited within 4 hrs of initiation. So in view of the unwarranted requirement to wait for another 6 days and all the false promises I had to take from them previously, I asked them for a screenshot of the transaction they initiated. They wouldn't respond to that as well. On calling they just keep on asking me to wait.And finally replied as per company policy they would not share the screenshot.

I finally got the refund yesterday ie 72 days after I transferred it to them. The amount of pain I had to take for this had been tremendous

My experience with the company is that they do not have any value for their customers time and money. They follow you relentlessly till they get their money. After that everything is the customers responsibility.
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