[Resolved]  Club Mahindra Holidays — Unfair trade practices and dubious reservation processes

I received a call in early November-2009 stating I have won a club mahindra lucky draw entitling me to an abolutely free 2 night 3 day stay at any of their resorts plus 2 movie tickets of Inox Multiplex, Nariman Point, Mumbai absolutely free. The only pre-condition was that we have to attend a no-obligation presentation of 45 mins, both husband and wife, after which we shall be given the free voucher irrespective of whether we enroll as members or not.

Hereafter we got repeated calls from their call centre asking us when we are collecting our free stay vouchers and tickets. Eventually we agreed to a convenient time and accordingy reached the Club Mahindra Office at CR2 Mall in Nariman Point, Mumbai.

It is only now that we realise that this entire process of attracting gullible innocents by various means is a very well planned out sleazy modus operandi of the company. When we reached there we were made to fill out a declaration form which said that we understand this would be a presentation of 45 mins and also that there is no obligation to purchase the membership. They also request to fill out information such the type of car we own, how often we go on holiday etc.

The presentation is handled in a very `planned' fashion by an executive and a manager (viz. Mr. Farshogar Madon and Mr. Lalit Gehani, in our case), The executive portrays as if we are indeed lucky to have been selected for the offer and that we are there on a day that happens to be a Special Offer Day which is supposed to be too good to let go. All the time, the executives portray strongly about the brand and family name of the Mahindras and their class properties around the country pretending to be very honest about everything. They only indulge in explaining the various resorts and facilities that we can avail of and how easy it would be to avail a 1 week five star holiday every year at a marginal price without disclosing for a long time the actual cost of the membership. All the while that the executive makes this ground building presentation he does not disclose the cost of the membership. Then he asks his manager to come and tell us about the costs. Stealthily they lead the prospective member into believing that they would be missing out on a very lucrative offer of the day. Throughout the joint presentation they move in on the `kill' explaining the features and facilities in handwritten fashion on plain paper. Very cleverly they dodge all questions when you ask for reading the terms and conditions in writing, stating that this is exactly as explained during the presentation and that it can be given to us only if we become members and that it would form part of the Welcome Kit that we receive from the company. On insisting that we cannot take any decision without understanding everything in black & white, they again convince you to have faith in the name of the Mahindras and that there are so many members enjoying the benefits of the membership every year. They show pictures of happy families and offer to have us speak to some of their members if we feel the need to. They initially purposely try to sell you a lower category membership to make you feel as if they feel you may not be able to enroll for the highest membership i.e. Red season membership. They made it sound so easy as if there are a large number of options that a person desiring to be member can choose from with varied EMI plans as well as interest free EMI plans. They slyly put you off-guard by stating that they will hold on to our application for 10 days as part of their built-in process and then process it only thereafter during which time we are free to cancel our application for a full refund. They claim that they have to swipe our credit card for the down payment so that we can avail of the special offer that is valid only if we pay the down payment on the spot. We reallised only later that this is a trick played on most prospective customers only to make it sound easy - it is only later that we have come across so many cases on the internet wherein even if the prospetive member has decided within 10 days not to proceed with the membership they have been unsuccessfully running from pillar to post to even get their down payment back.

We were offered as part of the `special deal'
* a complimentary 2 years membership of RCI
* a discounted standard exchange fee for availing an international holiday
* a bonus exchange week in addition to our entitlement
* a Sony Bravia LCD TV 26"
* a 14 nights holiday in any Club Mahindra Resort valid upto[protected]
* Food vouchers worth Rs.4000 redeemable at Club Mahindra owned resorts only valid for one year
* Three Bonus weeks with RCI which can be availed anytime during the validity of our RCI membership
* 2 nos. of 2 night / 3 Day free stay vouchers

We intially made a down payment for a white season membership of a studio appartment, which we upgraded to a red season membership by paying the difference amount, thinking that we would be able to utilise them with more season options and that we would have better chances and more priority during reservation requests. This was the highest available membership that was offered by the Club Mahindra people in a symbolic gesture to portray that they have purposely closed the Purple membership as all their inventory for that season had been sold out.

All these lucrative offers and camouflaged `genuinity' did make us feel as if we were in a for some very good holidays within the next 2 years itself (and for the next 25 years) and we had already started eagerly planning on when to take leave from work. We began planning our wonderful trips to various destinations chalking out the possible dates when we could take off from work and avail of the privileged holidays.

Both o[censored]s made many tentative plans and decided to first use up our free vouchers and entitlements right away as we did not want to waste any of the offers

It was only when we first tried to utilise our free vouchers, that we realised that all those promises of easy reservation system, excellent service, extended help-desk, a travel desk to help us with great offers and deals on airline tickets and hotel discounts at any time were mere sales gimmics. A member cannot attempt to book any holiday before 6 months and even when he attempts to book within the 6 month period he is usually faced with a `No Availability' situation. Mr. Farshogar and Mr. Lalit had very categorically told us earlier while selling us the membership that if we every had any problem trying to get a reservation, it would be better to do all reservations through them and that we were welcome there anytime. However when we tried to take their assistance in getting a reservation they kept on committing that they would revert to us with the availability, but in effect they wouldnt call us back unless we again went to their office or called them.

It was first in the midst of Dec-2009 that my wife gave them certain dates for a holiday for which Lalit was to revert within 24 to 48 hours. However no one reverted despite reminders and then Lalit suddenly disappeared apparently for a surgery.

When we personally visited their office to express our regress Farshogar and others in your office took the excuse of Lalit's surgery and blamed it on Lalit that he had not communicated anything to the office before proceeding on leave and hence the problem.

Thereafter we took cognigance of Farshogar's assurance and waited for him to respond. He too failed to revert to us as assured.

When we again visited their office personally again in the 3rd week of January-2010, quite disgusted with their service and care-less attitude towards the customers, we were told by Lalit that it was Farshogar's to be blamed for showing insensitivity towards the customers that has caused this and that he would now personally see to it that we got the bookings. It was our marriage anniversary on 26th Jan and we had been hopefully planning to have a nice trip during the long anniversary weekend - all our hopes and dreams were shattered due to Club Mahindra and we were eventually unable to make any anniversary holiday plans, thanks to the sleazy attitude and postponing tactics of Club Mahindra and its officers.

Finally, after having missed on planning out a holiday and wasted our holidays, in frustration I finally wrote a complaint to them on [protected]@clubmahindra.com. Even in all that time that went by after the false assurances, still Lalit had not yet gotten back to us. This is despite giving him the dates in writing and handing over BOTH our vouchers to him for doing the needful.

We were by then completely convinced that all the assurances of servicing and 5 star holidays are nothing but ways to dupe people into taking a membership. There is no customer service driven approach in the company and it is completely a person dependant process leaving the customers to the mercy of any personnel who can choose to keep taking the customer for a ride without any accountability.

We did not apply for a CM membership in order to be taken for granted and harrassed (and mentally tortured) merely for encashing even our vouchers / bonus weeks - even when we had not yet even begun using our membership benefits. It completely appears to be a highly misrepresented scheme by a well trained marketing team for luring gullible members with false committments and promises.

We have not yet availed of even a single membership benefit till date and wish to terminate the membership with retrospective effect. You are requested to assist us please in getting a complete refund of all our upfront membership fees paid plus the amounts thereafter charged to our credit card till date alongwith suitable compensation for all the mental agony, torture and waste of time that the company and its officers have been putting us through. It is our very hard earned money and we were hoping to make the best use of it by having some vacations together. Club Mahindra has fleeced us of our hard earned money through false promises and caused us a lot of mental torture, waste of time and energy and missed special occassions because of their one-sided, monopolistic and restrictive practices.

Club Mahindra inndulges in luring prospects with lucrative offers, which in effect can actually never be utilised or can in some lucky occassions be only partially utilised. In exchange for this, they fleece the prospective member off handsome moneys from their hard toiled earnings and bind them to the torturous end of a 25 year committment wherein it is only the members loss always if he does not cough out money at beck and call of Club Mahindra but has no recourse to demand his rights or services as promised.