A few days ago I recieved a call that we have been picked us a lucky couple for shopping in Total mall for above Rs 1000 and we have won a free stay to any of the resorts of country club in Goa/Kerala/Bali/Sri Lanka. The catch was that we have to go and attend a 60 minute presentation in their office in Jayanagar 7th block office near Bajaj Popular showroom and collect the gift.
The offer looked lucrative to me and I went their with my husband. They also insist that we should attend the presentation together with our spouse.
They started with the gifts. There were 3 gifts they said:
7 days worth of free stay in one of their resorts in Kerala/Goa/Bali/Sri Lanka.
1 day of free pass to sarjapur country club.
A set of ice cream bowl set.
Then they said that there is something in offer today and only for the day and if we want to know about that offer:
They started their marketing on country vacations. That they would give us a 5* resort every time we go out on their vacations. We will get 7 days of vacation every year and so on and so forth. And this for 30 consecutive years.
After chewing our brains for nearly an hour they revealed the prices to us:
We have to give Rs. 3000 every year for maintenance. Because whenever we go for vacation they would paint the house and all. Sounded rubbish to me. How often would a person go to the same place and how often would they get that painted?
Now came some more offers. they would give us lifetime of country club membership absolutely free of cost. a 27X40 plot 75km from Devanahalli free with this. health and accident insurance free whenever we are on vacation. some amount of discounts in air fares if we book through them.
Then came a nice big blow. we will also have to give Rs 3 lacs 49 thousand as a one time charge for 30 years of holidays for the RCI vacations and 2 lacs 49 thousand for the non-RCI vacations. I really could not understand the difference in RCI and non-RCI as I was shocked and surprised on the mention of such big amounts. when they saw that we are not interested they started to put in lot more in offer. they reduced the amount. 1 lakh 50 thousand for 10 years. then 1 lakh 5 thousand for 5 years+ 5 years of membership free in Moksha.
then 36 months of 0% interest EMI. it was nearly two hours then. and our heads were aching. we offered them to keep their gifts with them and requested to let us go. after repeated requests they finally gave us a form to fill which they said is a cancellation form. cancellation? we were surprised again. while filling up we saw that its a feedback form. then while er were waiting for the gifts, the marketing executive told us that in the free stay coupon they would print the same token number which we had filled during shopping. But they had never asked us the coupon number. and the funniest part is the coupon was on our friend’s name and not ours. so no way they could have got the token number. we could catch this bluff then and there.
However, they gave us the gifts. but in the gift it is mentioned that we would have to give Rs 3000 as administration charges as booking amount for FREE stay.+ some 400Rs tax for each day which makes it Rs 6000 only for the FREE stay!
Anyways, after coming out from the place escaping the trap, I tried to see the reviews in mouthshut and I feel great that we have escaped the trap and saved some hard earned money.
The EMI’s are not interest free and you pay 2% interest. you pay 1/3 rd of the money as the first EMI. They promise that they would give the resort out on rent if you can’t avail it but how would you ensure that they give you the money. Not sure how much more of such hidden costs and bluffs would be there once you register with such a heavy amount.
When I told them that we need a day to think about such a big commitment, they told us that it would not be possible and we will have to take a spot decision. and then we found that the amount is different for different people. they try to judge the financial status and then play the cards.
My goodness. it was such a tough job to escape from there. but we are soooo happy we made it!