It’s a scam, be forewarned.
There is a Japanese saying, when you get on the wrong train, and as soon as you realise it, get off at the earliest station, the more you think and go further, the more difficult it becomes to return. This sums up my experience of club resorto. The formula is simple. find some rich people, over-promise them a very high value low cost offer for a extremely long period, get them to loosen their purse, when they do, get them to sign a document with twisted terms and conditions where almost return of money is impossible, dont give them time to read document and all the money is yours. What a plan. These people believe that getting people to sign a document will be their escape route from all legal and criminal prosecutions. They have miscalculated this one step.
It is officially a scam, no two ways about it. Let me put it straight to you, you are dealing with seasoned criminals, very well experienced in scamming have spent some good time doing it and extremely difficult to smell a whiff off. There were alarm bells ringing in my ears while I took the bite, that these are delhi people, that these are people who have sold their moral ethical values for pittance, beware, but still I got trapped anyways.
Let me break it down for you their modus operandi. If I can save even one person from being scammed, I will feel my money I lost was worth it. As I write this I have asked them to discontinue my "membership" and they are sitting on it dragging their feet. No clear replies. their replies are tailor made almost as if copied from club mahindra emails, and very sugar-coated, they reply like "we have escalated to the concerned department" etc, they are infact a handful of people operating from some room in delhi.
How they approach.
I had been approached by club mahindra a few times after I purchased two cars in full payment. I didn’t take it, but lately after I had some bad hotel experiences I decided to go for club mahindra, these people appeared just about that time with very low mouth watering package, I call it my fate. These guys used the similar wordings like of club mahindra, the same style, same messages and phone calls, ditto copy of club mahindra. They called on pretext of SGA TATA CARS coimbatore as did club mahindra calling for an offer for few select customers. They had my car number and address and phone number. They called me to a 4 star hotel and there was an auditorium booked with tables for similar selected targets, the same way as club mahindra. It was Deja vu for me. They offered a welcome drink and some snacks.
Sales(scamming)experience.
This is where they go for the kill. I was dealt by one person named xxxxx xxxxx and one very young trainee guy named xxxxxxxx(atleast this is what they identified themselves to me as, I wont be surprised atall if they are using aliases to mask identity). I am experienced in sales and know the standard textbook sales tricks when I see one. There was a well rehearsed classical textbook style display of all sales tricks on demo. When I teach sales to my staff, keep telling them that sales skill is a very big power, it can do good as well as do major harm, you should never attempt to use to cheat a customer, and here I was fully knowing still got played upon, right under my nose. This is where I would like to warn you, your judgements of right and wrong will fall flat, I will tell you that now.
1)They will take a sheet of paper and write some gibberish which doesn’t make sense while they talk, every single person will do it like they are clones, THIS IS SALES TRICK NO1. the act of writing gets you to “believe” that whatever they are saying is “true”, the same sense of assurance will not be there if they only talk. That is why people believe mythological stories to be true as they have "read" it.
2) they use well established trusted brand names like Taj, club mahindra, le meridian, Lalit, park hotels and all as their partners. THIS IS SALES TRICK NO:2. The trust psychologically transfers on their brand. They have no relationship with these brands whatsoever. They book hotels right off the options appearing to us on internet. Just that they choose the lowest in the available list.
3) they will tell you that they don’t have a tieup with Taj group and they will not be able to book hotels there, all majority of brands other than Taj is covered, THIS IS SALES TRICK NO:3. this sentence double nails that they are truthful people, this is a standard play in sales that accept some deficiency and it doubles up trust. They don’t have any tie-up with anybody not even Saoji Bhojanalay. This is what we came to know. They write in their contract document that they will book in their affiliated hotels, rerality is that they are affiliated with nobody. They will never mention the word 5-star / if not available 4-star and above and all in any place in their final contract which they will be telling you during booking a thousand times loud and clear. They will book traveller lodges near bus stand and argue that this is 4 star. As per contract they are right.affiliated hotel! This starts when you do the second booking. All ponzi schemes make you enjoy the first time using your own money. These people do the same.
4)They show you a brochure with logos of many companies as their official brochure, and once you see it, you see their logo along with logo of reputed companies like make my trip, indigo, and many other luxury brands in one place, you see them in big business category. THIS IS SALES TRICK no: 4. to establish brand image. The reality is they don’t write down or put a single name or logo or give that brochure of logos to you when they are booking for their scam. They are a lone wolf out for hunt. They just used reputed logos conviniently.
5) their duration of contact is very long and you will be given choices of 15 /25 years, once you pay, even if you cancel your membership 50% of amount is gone.no refund also. This they will not tell you.
6) they will promise a list of things and you will realise in your first hotel booking itself. Almost all of it was a hoax sales push to trap you. In sales you have to show very high value as compared to the cost and you can easily trap customers. Same here. Some examples like.
6a) you will be told to be booked in a 5 star hotel, incase not available, it will be a 4 star or equivalent.
Reality: we were given options of traveller lodge and shacks, when we enquired separately over phone, they where ready to book for 2000 rs and still willing to go down. this hotel started only 1 month back. When asked about "club resorto" to them, their reply was "what is club resorto? We don’t know any such thing". Scammed!
6b) they promise to book flights for 15% to 40% less than shown in make my trip as they are there sister concern.
Reality: When you book you will know that you get the same price as is shown on internet and they book from anywhere and not necessarily MMT, and we were getting even lower prices from yatra.com. and I found that this was not mentioed in the final document. So no discount whatsoever as promised, I called customer care of mmt to enquire that do you have club resorto booking, their response was same as that of hotels, "what is club resorto, we don’t know what you are asking". Again Scammed!
6c) with all “ponzi schemes”, these people give you the first booking with all bells and whistles, dont celebrate you are spending your own money, wait till the second booking and you will see reality. If you have done health insurance you would know, first payment is full payment, second time when you approach, they will tell you that you are not eligible for payment. I own a hospital and this cheating we see daily.
6d) they will promise you hotel cab at 11rs per km from airport to hotel.
Reality: When I asked at my first booking with club resorto for cab, they asked 500rs for 1.5 km. I mentioned that I have booked through club resorto, they were staring at me as if I am mad. I had to pay up. Nobody there knew what the hell on earth is club resorto. Scammed again!
I can go on more.
having friends at high places who have offered to dig deeper into this groups activities. while I am writing this already my known police friends have already begun tracing these peoples whereabouts through their phone numbers, all people who were called to hotel that day from that particular phone call is being listed, identities of these scammers and aadhaar details are being collected. Legal opinion as to how to corner these people has already been initiated since last week. My biggest worry is that the scale of scam is in crores( this guy xxxxx xxxxx was boasting that he made 9 crores in a single day outing once.) there are some xxxxxx people involved and these collected funds should not go into xxxx xxxxxxxx or xxxxxxxxx activities, already economic offences wing has been intimated to trace their money trail through my IAS friends in economic offences wing(EOW) in mumbai. this mistake will be the costliest one they would have ever made.
while you have read upto this, I need you to do something for me and for this nation, inform the hotel where they are holed up, that if this hotel dont want their name to be dragged along in a major scam network, immediately kick these people out. also intimate the local police station about the presence of a this gang with such activities and this review of mine can be shared to police too. keep safe and keep yourself away from these guys.