Club Mahindra Holidays — EMI Plan not changed for last six months resulting in higher interest costs

Address:

Maharashtra

My Club Mahindra Membership Id is 2426430

The length of the email below will suggest the amount of agony i have been facing for the last six months. I could not make it shorter, I request the concerned person to kindly go through it.

I bought the membership of White-Studio in Jun-2012, by making a down payment of Rs. 30000 and a four year EMI plan. At the time of taking membership the sales person informed me that EMI plan can be changed anytime without any hassles, but before the first EMI was charged i informed the sales person to change the EMI to the one year plan which was interest free. The sequence of events is as below

On July 4th 2012: I asked Mr. Tauheed (Sales person who sold the membership) to change the EMI. I was told it cant be changed as any change can be done only between 15th and 25th of the month. this was contradictory to what he has told at the time of selling the membership. He agreed to make changes in Aug-2012.

Aug 2012: To our agony, we found the plan was not changed, and when we inquired about it, it was told that since system upgrade is going on it will be changed in the next month. We had already borne the interest cost for two months

Sep 2012: Nothing changed, Again the excuse for not changing the plan was system upgrade. This is the first time i wrote a written complaint asking even an upgrade is going on, it is not our fault and all the interest costs should be waived off. At this point of time i was assured that it will be changed in the next month.

Oct-Nov-2012, Even with written and telephonic follow ups the EMI plan was not changed. And every month we kept bearing high interest charges. In the end we were told by Mr. Tauheed that EMI plan has be changed and that he is working to refund back the interest which amounted to approximately Rs. 17000 for 5 months

Dec-2012: The credit card which was given to Club Mahindra expired (Which was notified to Club Mahindra in Advance on 20th Nov 2012). I got a shock when i saw an SMS saying an EMI worth Rs. 7000 (As per the 4 year plan) is charged on my old credit card, and hence i could not pay the EMI in the month of Dec-2012. Quite clearly Mr. Tauheed lied to us here that the plan has been changed to 1 year. The interest amount by now accrued to Rs.20000

Now Fortunately or Unfortunately, since this month i did not pay any money, Club Mahindra woke up from the sleep, and started following up with us, and came to know the mess up.

It took us the whole month to explain what exactly we wanted (i.e. the refund of Interest and change of plan to interest free EMI plan), nobody in club mahindra seemed to understand the concept of EMIs and that by our cost has gone up due to their ignorance by charging EMIs to us on a 4 year plan.

Now, to make things worse Club Mahindra started to negotiate with us for the refund, by first giving us 2 nights free, then by adding few food coupons. After a month when we the matter escalated to Tauheed's senior Ismail and Mr. Sunny Sam from Member relations in Chennai, it was decided that interest paid in 4 EMIs (already paid) out of 5 will be refunded. 2 of which would be adjusted with future EMI's principal, and we would recieve food coupons for the value of the interest paid on the other 2 EMIs. Also agreed was that their will not be any interest charged due to unpaid EMI of Dec-12. At this point i was so frustated that i asked Mr. ismail not to charge any amount on my new credit card, before taking my consent and showing me the actual working of how emi's are being calculated now.

2nd January 2012: To my biggest shock of dealing with Club Mahindra, a suspicious amount of Rs.6680 was charged on my credit card without my consent(which in itself is a crime). Bigger sin i found was when i asked Mr. Ismail the reason for charging. he immediately replied that you agreed to bear the cost of interest on 2 EMIs, and that we will settle it against food coupons, we have charged the same.

When i told him that i want refund of that, and that i have already paid that how can you charge me what i am supposed to get refunded, he tried to avoid the conversation and said that he will revert back with the details within 2 hours.

When he called me back, the explanation he gave very confidently was that it is an adjusted EMI and that all the adjustments which were supposed to be made have been done. I asked him to give me details of every EMI and the interest paid with that. When the numbers came out, it was quite clear that just to close the complaint in a hurry, without understanding the situation, just like before a representative of Club Mahindra gave a loose reply to a genuine query. The numbers Mr. Ismail gave clearly suggested that he messed up with what actually supposed to be done and accepted that it is a mistake that he charged something which was actually supposed to be refunded, the exact Rs. 6680, which summed up to be the interest on EMIs for two months.

Due to my indulgence i found out mess up which club mahindra's representative have done. Had i been a little ignorant Mr.. Tauheed first and the Mr. Ismail would have easily covered up their mistakes and made a fool out of me. Moreover, their excuse for making the mistake is that, this kind of complaint is new to us, we are not supposed to handle complaints but we are still doing it for you, company is doing too much for you, and even threats like please accept our offer otherwise you would not get anything.

I tried writing mails to all the email ids, available on Club Mahindra's website. but apart from Mr. Sunny Sam, nobody else has been replying. He also helped only by taking it back to Mr. Tauheed and Ismail.

Request an intervention from the highest possible authority. This is not just a complaint but a case of ignorance,misleading, cheating and complete indifference towards the customer.

At this point i not only want the refund but also want a compensation for my time wasted following for the last six months with atleast an apology from the employees involved.

Regards
Ankit Varshneya
Mumbai
Ph. [protected]