- Extreme delay and irresponiveness towards Flight Ticket refund ^Open

Saloni Bhattar filed this complaint against Goibibo on Jul 29, 2020

Resolution Demanded:
Apology
Refund
Damages

We booked return flight tickets on Lufthansa airlines for my grandparents from Delhi to Boston through Goibibo. The date of departure from Delhi was March **th ****, layover was at Frankfurt and final destination was Boston. Similarly return flight was from Boston on May **th, ****.
Because of the sudden lockdown due to Covid outbreak, the Indian and international airspace shut completely from March **-** onwards. Yet there was no communication from either Lufthansa airlines or Goibibo regarding flight cancellation (but the flight had obviously cancelled since everything was under lockdown) . Hence we ourselves on March **th requested for cancellation of our tickets and put a request for refund with the Goibibo team.
We got a response from them after few days that our cancellation request (#********) has been accepted and Goibibo will be able to refund only when the airlines refund them the amount. We waited for months, finally we started communicating with Lufthansa call center (May **** onwards) to check the status of our refund every ** days. They kept saying it's under process and they can't commit by when they can exactly refund the amount. We kept waiting, as we understood that during Covid situation, it would be hard for the airlines to do immediate/timely transactions.
On July **th ****, I called Lufthansa call center again and they shared a mail ID with us to whom we could write and check the status of our refund. We got a response after * days on the mail saying that "...the processing of the refund needs to be processed by the agent and there is a proper channel of communication between the agent and the airline.
We therefore request you to again contact your travel agent and check the refund status as the airline has already advised the agents on how to process the booking for a full refund."
We tried to contact Goibibo support again. While their website shows "Refund under process" status to our bookings, but when we use the website Chat robot 'Gia' to ask our query, the response I get is "Dear Customer, There will not be any refund applicable for your booking, as we have aborted the cancellation placed by you as per your request." Firstly WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?? There has NOT been any such "Abort the Cancellation" request from us!
When we call their customer support numbers as shown on website, we are unable to get through any of them because by the time we reach the right menu listing on the automated calls, the message comes "you have exceeded the number of inputs in the call" and the call automatically gets disconnected. Goibibo's customer support mail ID has also been changed as they have "automated" everything!
Finally I messaged Goibibo on their Twitter handle, they asked me for my booking ID. But to no avail. NO RESPONSE FROM THEM on the status of my request!
It's been * months since we have been tossed around from the airline to the travel agent, but we have zero idea about the status of our refund request. It is so mentally harassing for a consumer that their hard earned money is stuck somewhere and that too a substantial amount, but the service providers (especially Goibibo) do not care at all to even apprise the customer of their refund or let the customer reach them in the first place!
HORRENDOUS CUSTOMER SERVICE. FRUSTRATING TO SAY THE LEAST. We just want our due money back, PLEASE.

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