[Resolved]  Vibranture — Unfair misrepresentation and zero intent on delivering on services

Address:

Mumbai City, Maharashtra

I signed with Vibranture MBA consulting on 23Dec post a discussion 3 days back. While I had signed up for full services, he had shown keen intent on assisting me with application work and strategy. In-fact he had sent motivating emails on lets do a best crack at the school where I am making my application for. This person right after signing up does a brainstorming session with me (which is priced differently and quite heavily for a single package). Being a full service client, I had already paid Rs 48000 for two services - comprehensive essay package and resume service. In the 1.5 hour discussion that we had on 26Dec (which btw didn't happen on 25Dec cause Prince Peter, the consultant with Vibranture mentioned that he doesn't work on 25Dec. This bit I didn't know because I didn't account for days he doesn't work for when I only had 15 das for my deadline to application). Thereonwards, he signed me up. Did this brainstorming session where I had a total of 90 minutes based on the package I bought. We used only 60 minutes and decided to keep the rest 30 minutes parked for later. I returned back to him on 29Dec, that what would be his suggestion on how I work on my rough drafts cause though I had a brainstorming session with him but I don't see much value coming out that and I need more support. His retort reply on that email were as follows. "I took you on as a client because you were a direct reference, and after you repeatedly affirmed that you wanted to go ahead with our partnership. I am/was also very clear about exactly what service is on offer.So, in a professional email it is difficult for me to accurately comment on your 'hope' that I would write your essays for you. Neither can I comment adequately on what I feel about you wastefully expending the time that I could have used to guide serious candidates.I am going against our no-refund once started policy and am making a complete refund minus Rs.20, 000 [Rs.16, 000 for ~100mins brainstorming time, Rs.4, 000 for time spent on the resume] so we both can move on." Above was clearly demotivating for me provided I had already paid Rs 48000 to him with my worry of a deadline hovering on me. To this approached by calling him. He was already fuming and not only he kept mentioning am not a serious candidate. He also kept mentioning that I am not making sense. To that, he replied to me as folows: [protected][protected] Hi Ruchi, 1. We very clearly state what our service offers. OBVIOUSLY we have no way of accommodating ideas or wishes that are alien to it.2. Our stated policy is NO REFUNDS because we have only limited time and once we allocate time for a candidate we obviously have to refuse other candidates and forgo potential billing. I very clearly told you during our last talk there are NO refunds once you start the service. You agreed and we started. Despite that, our offer of refund for LESS time than we have spent on you was simply so we both can move on.We spent more than a 100 minutes of our talk-time on you only because you were buying the full service and we wanted to understand your views better for the services that would follow. We billed only 60 minutes on that assumption alone; if you had bought the brainstorming service separately the billing would have been for two hours [Rs.20, 000]- there is no half hour pack. Thus 90 minutes is simply a compromise that works in your favor.The resume service charges are HUGELY subsidized - once again ONLY for full service clients. The cover price for the standalone service is Rs.25, 000. Once again we are offering you 60% refund though our stated policy is 0%.This offer of refund applies ONLY TODAY: else we will have to keep open even more slots for you and will have to refuse other candidates and lose further potential billing. Please let us know either way. Of course if you want to continue you are quite welcome: as long as your expectations are in line with what we have promised. Also if you are continuing we would urge you not to give false commitment on sending material - like you have the last two times - each time you do that we have to change our schedule and lose time/billing hours. Again, I am going against our no-refund once started policy and am offering a complete refund minus Rs.20, 000 [Rs.16, 000 for ~100mins brainstorming time, Rs.4, 000 for time spent on the resume] so we both can move on.Please send me your bank details: Bank Name, Account holder name, Account Number, Bank Location, IFSC Code.This offer of refund applies ONLY TODAY: please let us know either way by 5pm today. [protected] Seeing his uncooperative behavior really did piss me off and specially so that I had already paid with him not delivering and chickening out and asking me to pay up significantly more to tune of Rs 8000 over and above Rs 12000 which we wanted to deduct for brainstorming session. I debated with him on how it is unfair that he just used time on my resume but he has not yet delivered. Nor did I take up an extra brainstorming session to which he was charging me money. Following is my email communication to him: "Dear Prince It has been a short and worthwhile association with you. Though we tried but I feel somehow this partnership may bound to have unmet expectations keeping our deadlines in mind. I agree that unwarranted surprises ain't ideal.I understand that you didn't take new clients. I do respect your time. As you see that since your strong recommendation came from Abhishek, I completely do trust you with your abilities.A) I understand and trust that you may have put some time in the resume and I'd get to see some drafts of it that you may share. So I am okay with your policy of refunding 60%. Thanks for making me the exception. However the value of services were also monetized in sync with application. I am willing to still go ahead with whatever you suggest.B) Though for the strategy session, I feel that charging full-rate is unreasonable. We are aware that we had a conversation as part of the comprehensive services package, where strategy is always bits and pieces as the comprehensive services allows that. What we discussed in first half an hour were guidelines and not strategy, as you clearly guided. When one hour strategy begun and stopped, you informed me so. We decided that I could use the next half hour to fix a strategy session for the hanging matters still. If in any case I would have bought the services of a strategy session, then I would utilize it. Please think about it. Well, that decision is up to you. I can only mention as much as above. I value our professional relationship much more than such underlying details. And really hope that when time is right, we get to work again together. To which his uncooperative response was as follows: "Hi Ruchi, Our stand is very clear: the partial refund is unfair to us but we are willing to do it to let us all move on. The policy is - and the fair refund should be - ZERO: that would be fair because we lose potential clientele when we sign up a full service client and more importantly because that is the policy that was very clearly stated to you. DESPITE that, the offer of a substantial refund is simply a gesture that will allow us to move on.Also, there is no 'strategy' session [in fact that word is not even mentioned in the service page]- there is just brainstorming TIME: as I mentioned before, if you had bought a standalone brainstorming service the clock would stop at 60mins; the rest of the time was spent on you because you reiterated and promised your status as a full service client. And there is NO question of ANY further input from us on ANYTHING, certainly not on the resume: in case you want a standalone resume service the balance would be Rs.21, 000.In case that is acceptable to you, we would be happy to bid you farewell and make the refund minus Rs.20, 000.Please let us know if the refund of Rs.28, 000 works for you ; because while we will wish you the best post this episode, we really would be happier not to communicate with you further, after the refund.Regards.Prince" Though he promised that he would return me Rs 28000 as refund. I am still awaiting that. I feel I have been unfairly charged and been duped on grounds of mis-representing information. I didn't get value out of the brainstorming session that I had and he himself agreed he discussed more from perspective of seeking information than giving because he needed information to work on next processes of the application. By virtue of that it is clear, the brainstorming session for which he charged me as an individual package was unfairly charged. Prince peter is a hoax and an inappropriate person to work with. All he did during the time was shout or scream and be mentally corrosive so as I could be further worried about a short time-line that I were working with. Also as I mentioned, he was not interested in sharing his insights on resume to which he charged Rs 4000 already.