I enrolled with Edwin's Art of Driving in February 2026 after being specifically drawn to their advertised promises of tailor-made, flexible, anxiety-aware coaching for adult learners. Their website explicitly states that lessons are tailored around the student's needs and that flexible lesson booking options are available. Based on these promises, I paid the full course fee of ₹29, 100 upfront — a significant premium over standard driving schools in Bangalore.
Only one session of 3 hours was delivered. During that session, the instructor arrived 30 minutes late with no acknowledgement. Throughout the session he made and received continuous personal phone calls — not emergency calls, continuous calls — including while actively instructing me outside the vehicle. At one point he was on a call while demonstrating steering technique, giving me fragmented instructions between call segments.
After Day 1, a subsequent session was cancelled due to an insurance lapse on the school's own vehicle. The instructor was then unavailable for approximately one week following Day 1, consuming course validity time through no fault of mine.
When I requested that the industrial and highway session be split into shorter blocks due to work commitments and energy limitations — and explicitly offered to pay extra fuel costs to accommodate this — the coordinator Senorita agreed in writing, stating she would schedule accordingly. She later reversed this agreement without explanation after consulting the owner Edwin, directly contradicting both her written commitment and the school's advertised promise of flexible, tailor-made training.
I raised all of these concerns formally in writing via email, attaching WhatsApp screenshots, payment confirmation, and the school's own contract as evidence. I asked two specific questions: whether sessions could be split as discussed, and what the refund process would be if they could not. Despite repeated formal written requests over several weeks, the owner Edwin refused to engage in writing. The coordinator's responses consisted entirely of requests for me to take a phone call, citing Edwin's preference for verbal communication. In one written email, the coordinator described my requests as being like "a patient telling a doctor how to do surgery."
I set multiple written deadlines for a response, all of which passed without a substantive reply. I formally notified the school of my discontinuation and submitted a detailed refund claim of ₹25, 140, calculated as follows: ₹12, 917 for 5 of 6 undelivered training sessions, ₹5, 323 for unused fuel based on their own stated rates, and ₹6, 900 for the license fee less the actual RTO learner's license fee of ₹200. This too received no substantive response.
I filed a formal consumer complaint with the National Consumer Helpline — NCH Grievance No. 8829376, registered March 6, 2026.
Following this filing, the owner Edwin sent his first ever written communication to me. Rather than addressing the refund, it contained the following:
1. A fabricated allegation about my conduct during sessions, raised for the very first time after weeks of fully documented communication, with no prior mention in any WhatsApp message, phone call, or email from either Edwin or Senorita.
2. An explicit threat to contact my landlord — a person entirely unconnected to this dispute — using my rental agreement which I had submitted solely as address proof for my learner's license application. This is a misuse of personal data provided for a specific and unrelated purpose.
3. A threat to contact my family members and inform them of this fabricated allegation. I am a 34 year old adult.
4. A threat to approach the RTO with the fabricated allegation as a means of pressuring me to withdraw my legitimate consumer complaint. This constitutes criminal intimidation under Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
The timing of these allegations — appearing only after a government complaint was filed, with no prior mention across weeks of documented communication — speaks for itself.
I have engaged legal counsel. A DCDRC filing is in progress. All documentation including emails, WhatsApp exchanges, the school's contract, payment confirmation, and Edwin's threatening email are part of the legal record.
My refund claim of ₹25, 140 remains entirely unaddressed. I am sharing this in full so that other consumers — particularly anxious adult learners and parents of young drivers who are specifically targeted by this school's marketing — have complete information before investing this amount of money.
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