Country Holidays Inn & Suites
- Making false promises and doing fraud Open
Abhinav Yadav filed this complaint against Country Holidays Inn & Suites on Mar 07, 2019
This is my worst experience with a country holiday inn & suites/chis (don’t confuse it with country inn). The sweetness and the gesture of the sales team will show while selling their membership. You are bound to fall into their trap and once your card is swiped, they will give you an agreement to sign stating that this is the written commitment of what we discussed showing the amount paid. They will not let you read the other conditions saying that you can read it later. They give all type of wrong information and make false promises.
Following is the description of the incident that I have gone through with “country holidays inn & Suites Pvt. Ltd, shop no-* lower ground floor, garden galleria mall, sector **-a, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, ******.
I have filled one coupon at garden galleria mall few days back, where the person told me that ‘country inn’ has opened new hotels at few locations including Shimla, Jaipur, Goa etc. and they will provide you * nights/* days stay at their new hotels and a couple of movie voucher if your names come in lucky draw. Immediately on next day, I received a call from a girl informing that I won the lucky draw for free vacation along with movie voucher. I was not willing to go as I don’t trust these offers, so I denied. But she kept on convincing me that I just have to visit the mall with my wife for collecting the freebies. I finally said okay, I will come.
Initially, I did not go to collecting the same as I was not so interested in these types of offers. but, they kept calling me again and again to collect the gift. Then I said I would not be able to make it on weekends as my weekly off is on Wednesday. So they said, they can arrange it for Wednesday. I counter questioned them whether there are any terms and conditions to accept the offer which they denied. I then said okay, I will come. They sent me a message with an entry code and date and time for the visit.
I finally decided to go there on **th Feb **** at around *:** pm. As soon as I entered a lady asked me to show the entry code I got on the message and then gave me a form to fill. I was then asked to attend a presentation about the company’s promotion to get free vouchers. There were few more people sitting there, thus, out of curiosity, I also agreed for the presentation. A well-dressed person came to me and started introducing himself as “Kushmesh”. He then asked us to please introduce yourself so that we are comfortable with each other for the next half an hour. He then asked you must be having some questions in your mind why any company is providing any free vouchers, which was right at that moment. He then said it’s for your time for promotion of the company’s new app “chis”. He then stated that you must have heard about the country inn and I was also under the impression that it is related to country inn hotels as the name is similar to that only and the text message also mentioned the same. He then asked me about my last vacations and said that he will offer some plan only if it is relevant to you, else you will be provided with the voucher without spending further time. He then said that offer would be valid for today only. He then said this is unlike other membership plans where they sell lifetime plans for *-** lakhs rupees. My wife started losing interest and said that she is not interested in buying any plan. He then convinced that he is not at all selling any plan to me and started showing some five-star properties (hotels). He then said what if this hotel will be available to you at *-star hotel price etc. I said yes it would be a great deal. he kept on blabbering about various features and promises about their membership along with his aide Mr Firoz like they have tie-ups with big five-star hotels chains and also have taken rooms at lease from five-star hotels. Also in addition to staying they provide all type of other services like spa, jacuzzi and other nearby local activities to their members. But after a thorough investigation, we found out that they neither have any tie-ups nor have taken anything on the lease but simply do the booking using third party booking sites and even charge heavily for anything other than rooms even for the water.
He then said we have a **-year membership plan for inr *, **, *** lakhs. I straight away denied the offer since I cannot afford to pay it. Kushmesh then called his manager Mr Shekhar Chaudhary and then started giving various options like taking it on emi or paying half amount now and remaining after * years. They then asked me about credit cards I am having. On the pretext of checking any further offers Mr Shekhar immediately swiped my card for the amount of inr ***** saying that he won't be able to check the offer without swiping. They brought it down to *, **, *** for ** years and said to me that I can get it converted into emi with many further freebies including * weeks of extended nights. They said no company will provide such kind of offer costing less than Rs *, *** per night for such kind of hotel stay.
I said it might be useful but it takes time to decide before spending such a huge amount for a middle class like me who is already paying a lot of emi of various loans. I even asked him to just cancel the transaction he just did by swiping my Citi bank credit card. In process of convincing me, he additionally offered me one-night stay at four points by Sheraton hotel New Delhi with my wife along with free breakfast. He additionally offered me * nights with breakfast at either Jaipur or Jim Corbett and * bonus weeks in inr *, **, ***. I then also denied that I can’t pay such amount at once. He then said he will arrange emi plan exclusively for me and I can take back entire amount refund in * days if I will not enjoy my stay at four points by Sheraton hotel. He showed some of the membership bought recently and said people who bought membership plan *-* years ago came and thank them for making an asset. He then showed on a calculator that per night stay is costing less than Rs *, ***. I and my wife also seem convincing as the offer was lucrative, then finally inquired about the cancellation part again where they told us that at any point of time we can cancel our membership. I finally fall into their trap and said them okay. He already had swiped my Citi bank card for inr **, *** and the remaining amount of inr ***** was swiped from my American Express card. He then came with an agreement and while signing when I wanted to go through the agreement but they did not allow us to do so saying that “sir, need not worry. It has all the information that we have discussed now and you can read it later showing the membership plan details and freebies only. You need not worry, the country inn is not a small brand, you know”. I also relied on them as it was too late (**:** pm) and we had booked a table for dinner in a nearby hotel as well. We were happy to get this deal and was waiting for membership details.
Then after getting home, I checked google about the company and it seems that it is a scam as the company was registered in December **** only. I then related that country inn and country holiday inn & suites are two different companies. There were many such scams mentioned on the internet. I was shocked to realize that a fraud has happened to me and that I have lost my hard-earned money.
The very next day I asked for the refund by calling on customer care and also to Mr Shekhar. Soon a call came to their senior customer relationship manager Rahul Arora and he managed to convince us to at least first avail their service and then decide what to do.
But with more investigation, our suspicion grew stronger that it's completely a trap and in future, they will not adhere to any of the promises and will ask to pay more charges at every stage.Even I got a previous article from times of India about a fraud case on this company where they had to return someone's money when the court ordered them to do so, whose link is: https://m.timesofindia.com/city/chandigarh/travel-firm-fined-for-deficiency-in-s...⇄
Now, this Rahul Arora is saying that do whatever you want to do but you will not get the refund and we regret to inform you that the cancellation cannot be processed against the specified reason, the membership is non-refundable as per agreement which is mutually signed.”
I then immediately replied with “I was informed that I can cancel my membership if I am not satisfied. also, the website clearly mentions the same as below:
In case of any valid point of dissatisfaction, the member can cancel their membership within * days of availing their first holiday.
https://countryholidaysinnsuites.com/chis/refund
Please help in getting the refund.”
I then, read the so-called agreement which mentioned things which were totally opposite to whatever they said. after researching for a while and consulting few people having knowledge of company laws I found out that according to Indian contract act, ****, this is a void agreement which can’t be enforceable as it is a one-sided agreement which doesn’t give me any right to cancel.
Further to add to this, in the consumer forum Ludhiana (case no.***, dt.**.**.****) the Hon'ble judge specifically addressed this issue of ‘non-refundability’ – “further the plea taken by the ops (country vacations) that as per the terms and conditions of the impugned contract, the membership fee once paid is non-refundable is also not sustainable, as the impugned contract is one-sided standard form of contract (where the parties are not equal in the bargaining power) which the ops got prepared according to serve their interest and the complainants were supposed to sign only on the dotted line. for such a view we are guided by the judgement by the Hon'ble supreme court reported in air**** (sc) ****.”
After going through all the reviews and complaints against this company I finally understand that this is completely a fraud where you will not get booking of your choice. They don’t have their own hotel as mentioned at the time of booking. They have floated a company whose name is like a country inn just to make people fall into their trap easily. I just don't want to avail any of your services and later regret for rest of life for being cheated and frauded, just return my money so that I can live in peace.
Please help me to get my money back since this a purely a fraud that has happened to me.
membership no- chisnd******
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2 Supporters
Resolution Demanded:
Refund / Credit for purchase
Country Holidays Inn & Suites
Resolved
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Max Serve Solutions Pvt Ltd
"Thankful to Voxya. As soon as the company received the legal notice, they contacted me and refunded my money taking back their items."
Purushothama N
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