[Resolved]  Country Holidays Inn & Suites — false commitment on membership

Website:

www.countryholidaysinnsuites.com

This is my worst and horrible experience with a country holiday inn & suites/chis (Don’t confuse it with country inn). The sweetness and the kind gesture the sales team will show while selling their membership, you will be bound to fall into their trap and once your card is swipe, they will give you an agreement to sign stating that this is the written commitment of what we discussed showing the amount paid. They will not let you read the other conditions saying that you can read it later.
Following is the description of the incident that i have gone through with “country holidays inn & suites pvt. Ltd, tdi mall, rajouri garden.

I have filled one coupon at raj mandir, rohini, new delhii where the person told me that ‘country inn’ has opened new hotels at few locations including shimla, jaipur, goa etc. And they will provide you 2 nights/3 days stay at their new hotels if your names comes in lucky draw with free pvr movie ticket.
Immediately after 2 hrs i received a call from a boy informing that i won the lucky draw for free vacation along with bookmyshow voucher. I was not willing to go as i don’t trust in these offers, so i denied. But he kept on convincing me that i just have to visit the tdi mall, rajouri garden, rohini. With my wife for collecting the freebies and have to spare a time of 45 minutes so that they could explain the freebies.
I did not go for collecting the same as i was not so interested in these types of offers. But, they kept calling me again and again to collect the gift. I counter questioned them whether there are any terms and conditions to accept the offer which they denied. I then said okay, i will come.

I finally decided to go there on 19th aug, 2018. I reached there and enquired about mohd. Junaid. Then a person shared a form with me asking the entry code to collect the vouchers. I was then asked to attend a presentation about company’s promotion to get the free vouchers. There were few more couples sitting there, thus, out of curiosity, i also agreed for the presentation. A well-dressed person came to me and started introducing himself as “prem kishore”. He then asked that please introduce yourself so that we are comfortable with each other for next half an hour. He then asked you must be having some questions in your mind why any company is providing any free vouchers, which was right at that moment. He then said it’s for your time for promotion of company’s new app “chis”. He then started that you must have heard about country inn and i was also under the impression that it is related to country inn hotels as the name is similar to that only and the text message also mentioned the same. He then asked me about my last vacations and said that he will offer some plan only if it is relevant to you, else you will be provided the voucher without spending further time. He then said that offer would be valid for today only. He then said this is unlike other membership plans where they sell life time plans for 5-10 lakhs rupees. I started losing my interest and said that i am not interested in buying any plan. He then convinced that he is not at all selling any plan to me and started showing some five-star properties (Hotels). He then said what if this hotel will be available to you at 2 star hotel price etc. I said yes it would be a great deal. He then said we have a 10 year membership plan for inr 1, 80, 000 lakhs. I straight away denied the offer since i cannot afford to pay it. They asked me that they will provide some cashback if few digits are appearing on my credit card. (I think they wanted to check whether i am carrying a credit card or not) they brought it down to 1, 35, 000 for 10 years and talked about various emis with many further freebies including 2 weeks of extended nights. They said no company will provide such kind of offer costing less than rs 2, 000 per night for such kind of hotel stay. I completely denied their offer.. They then very politely said that please collect your free voucher before leaving the office. I will take only 5 minutes. Moreover he then said offer can be utilized by you and your family simultaneously means you can go with your family and friends and book two rooms. You need not to pay any charge for extra room booking as the same get deducted from your limit of nights allotted.

Then he casually started talking that what resists you to take the offer so that he can provide feedback to the company. I said it might be useful but it takes time to decide before spending such a huge amount for a middle class like me and i may opt for it if you will provide me one day’s time after exploring about the hotels. He then said it was already informed in the beginning that any offer would be valid for today only and he is not feeling great that we have wasted an hour. He then offered me another plan for 5 years stating that though it is for old age person only, but he will somehow manage for it. He additionally offered me one-night stay at roseat hotel, gurgaon along with free breakfast. He additionally offered me 2 nights with breakfast at either jim corbet or shimla and 2 bonus weeks making a total night of 47 nights at inr 95, 000. I then also denied that i can’t pay such amount at once. I told that i can confirm it over the phone at the later part of day but they forced us into this by saying that this is an exclusive offer for few selected families which would expire the minute we step out from the room. He then said he will arrange emi plan exclusively for me. He showed some of the membership bought recently and said people who bought membership plan 4-5 years ago came and thank them for making an asset. He then said i only have to pay rs 7, 500 per month for such a stay for 5 years. He then showed on calculator that per night stay is costing less than rs 2, 000. I and my wife also seems convincing as the offer was lucrative, then finally inquired about the cancellation part again where they told us that at any point of time we can cancel our membership. I finally fall into their trap and said them okay. He immediately swiped my card for inr rs 78000 from credit card and rs 2000 from my debit card stating that we have offered you discount of interest to be shared by credit card. I immediately got an email with tax invoice for the amount. He then came with an agreement and while signing when i wanted to go through the agreement but they did not allow us to do so saying that “sir, need not worry. It has all the information that we have discussed now and you can read it later showing the membership plan details and freebies only. You need not worry, country inn is not a small brand, you know”. We were happy to get this deal and was waiting for membership details.

I got a confirmation call about the membership followed by an e-mail with login credentials after few days. I then tried login on app to see how it works, but it was not successful. I then tried customer care number for several times but it was not serviceable. Then, i checked google about the company and it seems that it is a scam as the company was registered in december 2016 only. I then related that country inn and country holiday inn & suites are two different companies. There were many such scams mentioned on the internet. I was shocked to realize that a fraud has happened with me and that i have lost my hard-earned money.

Finding so much negative comments about this company, i talked to prem kishore and mohd. Junaid several times on number of issues which will be detailed below. He started changing his commitments made at the time of selling and tried to manipulate me again. Somehow i did not loose hope on chis and asked for my first holiday booking in jaipur against the voucher for lemon tree hotel. At first instance they denied saying that i cannot make the reservation request for lemon tree because we can provide only achrol niwas in jaipur. Thereafter, i tried to book room for darjeeling and gangtok but they denied by saying that we can not provide two room which was previously assured at the time of selling membership. I also shocked to know that i also need to pay amc for the first year to book hotel which was assured to be paid after one year at the time of selling of membership. On which i asked for refund as i totally lost faith in the company. I asked for refund on mail, the reply was “we regret to inform you that the cancellation cannot be processed against the specified reason, as the booking has not been denied.”
I then immediately replied with “i was informed that i can cancel my membership if i am not satisfied. Also, website clearly mentions the same as below:
In case of any valid point of dissatisfaction, the member can cancel their membership within 7 days of availing their first holiday after deducting administration charges, asf and gst.
https://countryholidaysinnsuites.com/chis/refund
Please help in getting refund.”

I, then, read the so-called agreement which mentioned things which were totally opposite to what they said. This is a void agreement which can’t be enforceable as it is one sided agreement which doesn’t gives me any right to cancel.

Thus, this is completely a fraud where you will not get booking of your choice. They don’t have their own hotel as mentioned at the time of booking. They have floated a company whose name is like country inn just to make people fall into their trap easily.

I am enlisting all the false commitments and hidden things below:

1) at the time of sale of membership i was told that you can book hotel as per your choice with in eight location (Delhi, manali, jaipur, jin corbett, shimla, agra, jodhpur, udaipur) through redeem of voucher but at the time of booking hotel in jaipur it was said that you can book only acroll niwas in jaipur. Thereafter, i tried to book hotel in udaipur through redeem of voucher then it was said that you can book hotel at other location like bhopal, delhi etc but not in udaipur.

2) thereafter, i tried to book hotel in darjeeling and gangtok with my family for two room but it was denied by saying that you can book only one room as per agreement but at the time of selling of membership it was said that you can book two room. This happened again at the time of booking in udaipur also.

3) at the time of sale of membership it was said that the amc would be paid after utilizing one year allotted nights but at the time of actual booking of hotel they replied you need to pay amc first before booking of hotel. This is agin example of false commitment and wrong intention
4) at the time of sale of membership it was said that you can book hotel even 7 days prior the date of journey but the reality is miles away. Room is not available even 50 days prior intimation.
Company is cheating with innocent people by showing a very rosy and lucrative picture of the facilities and services offered, but in reality, by misrepresenting and concealing, they are willfully laying a trap by making people at large believe in your false promises and representations and fooling them and extorting their hard earned money.

Please help me to get my money back since this a purely a fraud that has happened to me. I have not availed any service from country holiday till date.

Thanking you,
Ankur
Membership no. Chisrg774988