Country Club India — False commitment for selling membership and denies after given membership.

Hello Everyone,

I want to share my experience with these cheaters called Country Club who sell membership by playing with your emotions and making false promises. I faced similar issue where I was cheated of Rs 1, 15, 000 in their Noida branch.
I though claim to be aware of these tactics used by membership clubs still got into their trap courtesy of my wife :)... Jokes apart its their strategy to call spouses along with as its easy to influence you together as couple. They would ask questions like which car you drive, where you live etc so that to get an idea of your earnings/paying capacity and accordingly plan will be given to you.

So coming back to my story, we were cheated as they membership of 10 years by playing the Andaman Nicobar trip card which we were planning. It was a big mistake by us that my wife signed the document without even reading it [first time in my life]..
Actually we went there at around 9 pm in and they made us listen to all crap and may be due to we were getting late to home, we took this decision in haste...When we came back at around 11 PM and I googled around, I came to know that I have been fooled.
By God's grace good part was I had made the payment via Credit Card..[If the payment is made via debit card, its very difficult to get the money back]
I called up my bank immediately to cancel the transaction, but they refused saying its been already done..I then called Country Club person who had sold us this membership asking him to cancel it but he started giving excuses to come and meet tomorrow. Remember these guys will try to settle things and ensure that you don't file complaint for couple of days..
I immediately sent emails to both Country Club and my bank to stop the transaction and cancel it.
Next morning, I went to HDFC branch and talked to manager..He did help me by giving certain case examples that money has been refunded back to people and asked me to launch a dispute in credit card department.
I called credit card department again and this time forcefully asked them to log my dispute for the amount. [This is very important step as initially bank won't agree to log a dispute but you will have to force them that this transaction has been done by you but it was done by doing fraud and you were fooled by making false promises]

Bank responded to me initially saying to provide statement from merchant [Country Club] confirming return of money and without that they can't help me. I didn't give up and escalated the issue to higher management in the bank stressing that the main issue is merchant is not agreeing to return the money though i hadn't taken any services from them. Kindly ensure to frame your complaint email in detail with giving all the valid points on why you want cancellation.
Another thing which I had done was sent a registered post for cancellation to the Country Club office. Registered post slip acts as proof it things go beyond bank to consumer court.
In the meantime I kept on following with Country Club Noida, regional and Central offices to give in written but they never agreed to.
But I was sure enough that I won't let go of my hard earned money and will fight for it.[I was even sure to approach Consumer court if required..]
Finally bank agreed to show me proof of cancellation which I had sent to country club. I sent them all the emails I had written to country club for cancellation, registered post slips. One good thing I had done was I had started recording the voice calls on my mobile and I saved the conversation which I had with Country club officials where they had said things like you bring some reference to us and if that reference takes membership, we will transfer your membership to them etc
I even shared these call records with bank.
Bank asked me to wait for 1 month to get a reply from the merchant. I knew they would never reply back, so I followed up with my bank again after 1 month. It was the phase when bank would have realized that I am correct. They credited back the money temporarily into my account and started their investigation. If you reach this step, guys be sure more than half of battle is won.

It took around 4 months for investigation to complete but I kept on following up with the bank every now and then say once in month.

I had done the transaction on 29-Aug'16 and finally the investigation got completed in Feb'17 and result was in my favor.

Few points to note:
1. Try to convince your bank that its a wrong transaction and keep sticking on that. Once bank gets the confidence that you are right, trust me they won't let go their customer and your money :)
2. Keep all records of communication which you have with Country Club.
3. Don't hesitate to approach back Country Club firmly for your cancellation. They will refuse or give you other offers [In my case they offered me many things during this time] but stick to your claim and keep these as proofs.
4. If bank is not able to resolve your issue, don't hesitate to approach consumer court. Its not tough guys and cases are normally dealt in a month there though 99% times your bank is in a state to take care of such issues.
5. Log a dispute as early as possible. Delaying it will make your case weak. Don't accept anything you receive from Country Club via mail or by post. We had received the kit they had sent, but we refused saying that we have already cancelled the membership and don't need it. They can use it as a proof against you saying you have accepted the membership.
6. Draft your complaint mail in detailed way giving all the reasons of fraud.

I wanted to share this here so as to tell everyone that its our hard earned money and don't give up on it so easily. I got ray of hope from reading such blogs and this helped me recover my money back.
Hope this helps some folks who are struggling with these cheaters the same way I had once.

Regards
Anurag