| Address: | Sanjib Chaudhuri Flat 33L, Tower 4, 375 Prince Anwar Shah Rd., Kolkata 700068 |
Public image of an organisation is more susceptible to permanent damage by errant insiders rather than temporary external influences. This complaint is a classic case of our observation which your management hopefully will adequately care to redress.
Complaint:Re: EGYPT Trip (8/11 – 16/11/2022)
Me and my wife placed an order to upscalethe above package including private cabin in cruise, preferred airlines (Emirates), Business Class air tickets etc. We also arranged our own insurances for higher sum insureds.SOTC in turn claimed more than doublethe standard package price (from Rs 4.62 lacs to Rs. 10.50 Lacs) including Rs20, 000 only to reserve seats of our choice for Calcutta – Dubai - Cairo andreturn sectors by Emirates. On full payment, air tickets wereissued as per our seat preferences but while check-ins at the airports, Emirates denied any such seat reservations made by SOTC on all the four sectors.Emirates, Kolkata knowing us as their frequent fliers, made spot investigationsand denied any change of seats made by them and neither any record of any extrapayment made by SOTC for such seat reservations. My wife and me thus were allotted scatteredseats for the flights were full and only through our personal approaches to thehigher authorities of Emirates both in Kolkata and Cairo we had the best of theworst. The issue caused harassment, spoiled ourholiday mood and Mr. Towsif Aman, the SOTC officer in Calcutta despite our repeatedalerts paid absolutely no heed to retrieve the situation. He irritatingly shruggedhis responsibility wildly accusing sometimes Emirates, sometimes to someunknown miscreant within the SOTC operations team and even didn’t spare us. Hisuse of words in written messages and over phones defaming our characters weretotally unwarranted and to be further challenged by us. His height ofcallousness was that between our outward and return journey although there wasa time gap of more than a week and despite our full reporting of the messexperienced in Kolkata, he didn’t take any action and was never in touch withus. Obviously on our return leg, it was a repeat shock only when we went for onlinecheck- ins in Cairo a day prior.
Issues needing response from SOTC:
1. Why we were not given a proper invoice andreceipt by SOTC for the amounts paid including GST or other taxes? This ismandatory.We have no clarity even today as to what was the actual price of ourEmirates Tickets and whether the Rs 20, 000 claimed for seat reservations wasactually a demand from Emirates and was paid out on time.
2. How could the Emirates tickets reflecting confirmedreservations of seats mentioned therein were altered without the knowledge ofthe SOTC?3. How dare your Mr Towsif pass the misdeed to someunknown person inside the organisation or to Emirates or to passengers? What could be anyone’s interest?
4. If the airline tickets were of any concessional fare, why not we were consulted prior hand? We only asked for full facility ticketswhich we are used to.
5. Doesn’t the matter need full proprietary audit ?
6. Since the service we paid for were not deliveredat all and rather costed harassment, loss of time and our holiday mental composure, why should we not be refunded with the Rs. 20, 000 claimed?
7. Why SOTC should not redress the grievance fiscallyfor the harassment and inconveniences caused to us?
Ournext trip with Thomas Cook:
Me and my wife have already booked for your Thomas Cook Japan CherryBlossom trip starting 26th March 2023. Here again we upscaled theoffer with airlines of our choice i.e., Singapore Airlines and although BusinessClass. Should you feel similar harassments could well be repeated, please adviseand we shall rather cancel our booking and claim the refund in full.
Sanjib Chaudhuri, B.Sc., CMA, AIII
Director, HDFC ERGO Gen. Ins. Co. Ltd.
Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India :
Member, Health Insurance Forum,
Member, Committee to Recommend Amendments to The
Reinsurance Regulations
Member, Executive Committee, Gen. Ins. Council of India[protected]
Ex: Chief Rep. for India, Munich Reinsurance Co., Munich, Germany
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