Holiday First Tours and Travel - Mental Harassment during the Tour

Respected Sir / Team,
Subject: Harassment faced during the trip to Sikkim.
We had planned our trip to Sikkim in May ****, for which we had booked the entire itenary from HOLIDAY FIRST (Mr Rehan Khan: ****** ***** / Mr Pradeep Dalai: ****** *****), the local Tours and Travel in the month of Oct ****.
We were total ** Adults and * Kids and * Infant. Out of the ** Adults * were senior citizen of ** yrs and ** yrs respectively.
Tickets were booked in month of Nov ****.
Total Costing (without airfare) was INR **,*** per adult and INR **,*** per Kid.
Travel date were **th May **** to **th May ****.
We started our trip on **th May and reached Bagdogra Airport at **:** AM. There were * Cars waiting for us, we took the car and reached Hotel Valley Vista in Gangtok at *:** PM. At Hotel we were told to submit the Photograph and Identity proof to get the permission to Changu Lake and Baba Mandir. We requested the Manager to postpone the trip to Changu Lake and Baba Mandir for Wednesday as Nathula Pass which is very near to Baba Mandir is closed on Tuesday. Manager agreed.
**th May ****: Since we had postponed our trip for Changu lake to **th May, we decided to go for Local Sightseeing which was scheduled for **th May. After the sightseeing, the driver dropped us at MG Road at evening which was around *-* Kms from our Hotel Valley Vista. After sometime we called the driver to drop us to Hotel, and driver informed that we have to take private Cab/Taxi to go back to Hotel since the Manager Mr Pradeep Dalai (Hotel Valley Vista) had not cleared the dues for sightseeing. We had to book * private cars which charged us INR *** each to drop to Hotel. We complained it to the Manager who was least bothered.
**th May ****: We had to leave for Lachen, manager Mr Pradeep told us to do the checkout at *:** AM. We did the check out as told by the manager, and was waiting for the cab on the road. The Cab arrived at *:** PM. The Cab Driver told that the Cab was booked by Mr Pradeep at *:** PM only. When we complained this to Mr Pradeep, he started harassing us and told us that he is cancelling our package and we have to return back to Mumbai. You can imagine * senior citizens, * kids waiting on a road from * am till *:** pm (almost *.* hrs) without washroom / food and getting harassed by the Hotel manager by saying that he will cancel the trip.
**th May ****: Lachen tour went smooth
**th May ****: Lachung tour went smooth and in the evening we reached Gangtok Hotel Doma Palace.
**th May ****: Mr Pradeep came to hotel at *:** AM and demanded INR *,*** per head for Nathula pass permit else he will cancel the trip to Nathula. We paid him INR **,*** (*,*** * **) and proceeded for Nathula Pass. We left the hotel by *:** AM. Just before the security check around * Kms from the hotel the driver stopped the car and told us that the he is awaiting the permit which the office boy (from Mr Pradeep Office) will come and deliver, post which we can proceed. We were waiting till **:** am almost (* hrs) on road and finally the office boy came with the permit. To our surprise after completing the Baba Mandir, the driver told us that there is high level meeting at Nathula pass and the army men are not allowing anybody to go to Nathula. We told the driver that the permit is already issued for Nathula and we have already paid INR **,*** to Mr Pradeep. When checked the permit (attached for your reference) we were shocked as it only mentioned Baba Mandir and Changu Lake. After returning to hotel we told this to Mr Pradeep, that our Itenary already consisted Baba Mandir and Changu lake, and we paid you INR **K for Nathula pass, you are fooling us and requested him to please pay the amount back to us. Mr Pradeep told that he will meet us next day morning, as **st was our last day in Gangtok and we will be proceeding to Pelling.
**st May ****: As usual Mr Pradeep came to Hotel in the morning, and instead of returning our INR **K he just returned us INR *K. We tried calling our Tour Operator HOLIDAY FIRST, but the number was switched off. We boarded the cars for Pelling. Now the real harassment started. We had local sightseeing on our way to Pelling, and * night stay at Hotel Snow View in Pelling. On the way to Pelling say at around *:** AM, the drivers stopped the car at a local restaurant. We taught it might be a tea break, but since the driver didn’t return after **-** mins we called the driver. Again the new surprise, Driver said that they have not received the payment from Mr Pradeep, and also there are no sightseeing on the way to Pelling. Apart from this they will drop us to Darjeeling the next day, where we were supposed to stay * nights in Pelling. Finally, we managed to reach Mr Pradeep and did the conference call between Mr Pradeep, Drivers and HOLIDAY FIRST, where Mr Pradeep told that he will transfer the driver payment in next * – * hrs. But he didn’t transfer the full payment.
**nd May ****: Local Sightseeing in Pelling.
**rd May ****: We left for Darjeeling at *:** AM in the morning, as usual another * more day of harassment, just before reaching Darjeeling around *-* Kms away, drivers again stopped the car at restaurant, and were not ready to further as they had not received the full payment from Mr Pradeep. It was around *:** PM in afternoon and Mr Pradeep was not reachable, we had to wait for more than * hrs on road, we decided to file a case against the Driver and Mr Pradeep in Local Police Station, since it was a Jungle there were hardly local people around. We requested the driver as my Dad (** yrs Old) was not keeping well due to Cold. Drivers agreed and we reached Jagjeet’s Hotel Yuma. Rooms were given and we requested the hotel staff to get the luggage from the cars. Again the drivers started misbehaving and didn’t allowed us to take our luggage, they told us that only once they receive the full payment they will give us back our luggage. After numerous try to Mr Pradeep and HOLIDAY FIRST, we managed to get our luggage.
This was really very embarrassing movement for us, as we were getting harassed like we are the debtors and trying to flew without paying. Though we had already paid the full amount to HOLIDAY FIRST in * months’ advance, we were treated this way.
This was not the end to our harassment.
**th May ****: Darjeeling Local sightseeing.
**th May ****: New Drivers were booked by Mr Pradeep for our last day sightseeing. Drivers took us to Tiger Hill, Batasia Loop. On our way back to Hotel, we noticed that the bag which we had kept in car during the sightseeing was opened, when checked we found that the money we carried for local shopping was missing along with other stuff, we complained this to driver, but he said he didn’t knew anything as the car were in the parking areas. We did the complaint to Mr Pradeep, who was least bothered, and told us that we can do Police Complain. We tried to logged the complaint with Tourism Complain desk at Mall Road, Darjeeling.
**th May ****: Back home safe and alive.