On a nice and beautiful evening when things were not in place, my mother was worried about the problems in life and was deeply thinking about them. One major cause for stress is inflow and outflow of the very important element in everyone’s life — MONEY and another one was my brother’s upcoming 10th board exam.
Knock. Knock! Heard on the door; A sales representative, from Byju’s — The Learning App is the popular brand name for Think and Learn Private Ltd, Bangalore.
He talked about educational importance, stress during exams and easy ways to ace them. The best way to succeed — BYJUS.
It looked so flowery and my mother was still reluctant in signing up. Upon continuous requests and force-sales-pitch, she opened up with the executive — the main reason not to buy was MONEY. He continued to talk about refund policy, where customer can cancel this purchase (Tablet + courses) any time before 1 month with 100 % refund with no questions asked.
He continued to talk to her and he said he would pitch the money if needed (and return later) because the cost of the course is only ₹ 6000 with a Tablet. Sounds like a good deal? Yes, it did. As she did not wanted to borrow anyone else’s money, she paid every rupee, counting to ₹ 6000 in various denominations, saved in all corners of the house.
He went ahead to ask for ID proofs to fill in the details and for purchasing the Tablet. (Now a days to access any service, you need to submit an ID proof right? It is not a big deal. He asked her to submit the self-signed photocopy documents because she is buying the Tablet now).
She is happy because there is an educational aid to help my brother for his 10th exams. She is also happier because this ₹ 6000 covers a Tablet, 10th, 11th and 12th + IIT/JEE coaching, an individual mentor, assignments and model question papers. (That is what the sales pitch by the representative was). A big question was — When my brother has not decided what to take up after 10th, how will the courses be assigned? He replied, we could inform the mentor at a later stage.
Let us talk about what happened after the sales representative left.
1) The product arrival was not on time we had to contact sales person, support and everyone involved to help us get the product. No follow up or no update with respect to the whole process.
2) No call from the mentor after the product. The service of mentor was not completed, not a single call from the company, mentor (or counsellor) as mentioned earlier to set-up the account.
3) We tried contacting the sales person to cancel the service within a week of purchase, which never happened. Until 15 days, nothing worked. Sales person or support no one bothered anything.
The MOST important and interesting twist -
4) This month after nearly 2 months of purchase, she received a SMS for EMI Payment from Zest Money. Until now, there is no SMS, e-mail or any kind of communication from Zest Money about the loan.
Do you wonder WHY?
The cost of joining Byju’s is ₹ 64, 000. The remaining cost of the course (after initial payment) was availed from Zest Money.
No one was aware of the loan or the source of loan that will be taken for the payment process, she was just asked to sign the papers (as stated above was the reason to sign the form) but when she wanted to read the papers he hurried telling her that he has explained everything. No one was aware that the course would cost extra ₹ 58, 000 other than the ₹ 6000, which was already paid.
5) This shocked all o[censored]s. We tried to get in touch with them. We spoke to sales person, customer support and after several calls and explanations. Sales person called back as he wanted to speak to me (He asked my mom to hand over the phone). He literally started YELLING at me because I raised a cancellation request. After few days of constant calls and e-mails, he agreed to cancel the purchase and to inform Zest Money. Nothing happened.
I contacted Zest Money and they informed me that if Byju’s issue a notification to cancel it; they have no problem in doing so.
As a customer, we have been ill treated verbally and with poor customer support. If the company owned customer support team cannot help, who else will?
Fund raising thousands of millions and appointing Shah Rukh Khan as Brand Ambassador is not enough, good response and satisfaction from customers will help the company grow. If the company spends, a fraction of percent on employee training, company can reach to higher level in doing business.
This is an open letter to Byju’s The Learning App (Think and Learn Private Ltd, Bangalore) to help me resolve my complaint and ₹ 64, 000 is a BIG chunk of money which we cannot afford to put to vain and because of this reason CIBIL score is being hurt, it is directly affecting all the IMPORTANT financial activities.
The Courts have repeatedly held that students are entitled to a refund upon quitting a coaching center/ educational institute or college midway through a course.
I did a small Google search about Byju’s poor customer support and found many cases. Hopefully mine and everyone’s complaint gets a resolution.
Sales person — Mr. Archit Kushwah
Customer — V Jayashree
Date of purchase — 10/02/2019
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