[Resolved]  Redbus — Bus met with accident, the operator and company refuse responsibility

Website:

redbus.in

I, Shubhanshu, had a ticket booked for a friend of mine - Isha Kudale, 23 - from Ahmedabad to Pune for 19th of March, 2022 through Amazon - PFA attached the ticket. The bus left Ahmedabad at the scheduled time but at around 10:40 pm the bus met with an accident where it stopped with a big and sudden jerk - causing whiplash because of bus driver's negligence - on a bridge, Kim River Bridge, somewhere between Ankleshwar and Surat in Gujarat. It took about 15 minutes for the bus crew to officially tell the passengers that the bus had rammed into a divider over a bridge on a river. Then the bus was parked somewhere off the bridge and the passengers were deboarded through the emergency windows since the door and the front of the bus was too damaged to get through. The passengers were asked to wait on the side of a busy highway. When I was informed about the accident, I called up your helpline number for redbus ([protected]) and I was told that the operator is arranging for an alternate bus within half an hour. I asked the executive what liability does Amazon and Redbus have in the case, to which his answer was a disappointing scripted line 'I'm sorry. Please wait for half an hour as the operator has promised to send an alternative...'.

I waited for half an hour and called my passenger for an update to which I was told that they were stopping random buses on the route and making 1-2 passengers board these buses while the rest waited. This horrible process went on for another hour. I called your helpline number again to check what the update was and the executive connected me with the operator who happened to be a stubborn and arrogant prick. He told me that that's all he can do. After the utter useless conversation with the operator, I asked your executive to write a report to a higher-up and attach the phone call as evidence of the operator's arrogance and ignorance. I was promised that the report had been sent and that I should check my email. After telling the executive that I hadn't received the email, I was asked to wait after the call. My passenger, a female, had to wait till 1:47 am on a random highway in the dark to find a bus that had one seat, was filthy and had a sharing seat opposed to a single seat that we had booked. I request a couple of things from Amazon as well as redbus:

1. A stringent action against the driver and crew and more so on the bus operator since all of them breached their duty of care against my passenger.

2. An immediate refund of the ticket along with proper compensation on top of it for the trauma and emotional distress caused due negligence of the bus driver, the ignorance and arrogance of the bus operator due to which my passenger had to suffer hours of agony and a situation that posed a risk to her life.

3. An action against the executives on the call whose apathy was appalling and enraging in a time of crisis.

And on top of all this, I expect a prompt response with utmost responsibility as a long-standing prime customer of Amazon. Please do not make me run from one point of contact to other since I've already done that last night.