Country Club India — scam: fraudulent membership & sales technique

Address:

560082

My wife, Kritika Ohri, received a call from a Country Club executive in the first week of May 2019, claiming that my wife has won two vouchers for a vacation. We went to collect the vouchers on May 5, 2019, at around 3:30 pm and met Mr Praveen Kumar and a female sales executive. After reaching the CCD in Sadashivnagar, Bangalore, they started explaining about the Country Club membership offers.

The price of the membership was initially quoted as Rs. 3 lacs by Mr Praveen Kumar which he later reduced to Rs. 2.5 lacs saying that we won't have to pay any Annual Maintenance Charges (AMC) if we choose this option. Since I and my wife travel frequently, we got tempted by the offer so I asked him for more discount. He finally offered all the benefits for Rs. 1.8 lacs.

Once the final price was finalised, we told Mr Praveen that we need to consult with our parents as we don't have enough funds at the moment. He said that we need to make at least 30% payment on the spot to confirm. Later he reduced the initial payment to 15%. But he said that you need to pay 15% of 3 lacs since that is the original price of the package. So my wife made a transaction of Rs. 44200 using her Kotak Mahindra bank debit card. Mr Praveen assured that Rs. 200 will be refunded in some time. We were made to sign the agreement very hastily and I was told that I will receive the agreement in my email in some time.

After that, we told him that we need to discuss the membership with our parents and we can only make the remaining payment the following day. However, he insisted on making a payment of another 30000 or 40000 before leaving. He also offered to send his executive with us so that we can give him a cheque for the remaining amount and they will return the cheque once we make the transaction online the next day. He somehow managed to make us pay another Rs. 20200 (this time using my wife's Citibank debit card). Again he assured that Rs. 200 will be reversed into the account in some time. The Rs. 400 still has not been reversed to the account.

As their offers kept changing in every 5 minutes and they were putting a lot of pressure, it began to seem as if they are just trying to extract whatever amount is possible from us. Immediately after leaving, I checked the email received from Country Club and it mentioned that I need to pay AMC every year to avail the services. There were various other inconsistencies with what was promised by Mr Praveen and what was mentioned in the emails and their website.

The doubts were further confirmed by the following day when Mr Praveen kept following up with me for the remainder of the payment. In the first email on 6th May, he says that I need to pay before 5 pm otherwise I can't avail the services and the Rs. 64400 we had paid will be of no use. In the second email that was sent at around 8 pm, he says that I need to pay immediately otherwise my membership will get cancelled and I will lose the earlier paid amount of Rs. 64400.

In spite of repeated requests to Mr Praveen, he still has not sent me the complete agreement. Within 2-3 hours of making the first transaction, I had informed Mr Praveen that I would like to cancel the membership but he said that it cannot be cancelled. After which I have informed my bank as well about the disputed transactions.

After following up multiple times and also contacting their customer care and Praveen's manager Mr Emmanuel Reddy, they sent an email stating that an amount of Rs. 3800 will be deducted and the remaining amount will be refunded within 120 days. Where we took 5 mins to make the transaction, they are saying they will take 4 months to refund the amount that too after a considerable deduction. They have stopped responding after their last email confirming the refund.

It is very clear from the reputation/reviews that Country Club has on all the online forums that they have been scamming people for years now. If one does a simple Google Search with 'Country Club Reviews', all you see is people complaining about how they have been cheated. It is amazing how such a company is still functioning in our country!