[So far I have booked 3 tickets successfully out of 5 attempts. 3 in 2005 and 2 in 2006. While booking a ticket today, I am facing the same problem I did last year.]
The Good
The site allows one to view the availability of tickets, the timings of the trains, the routes, as well as book tickets quickly. The design of the site is really bad, and takes times to get used to, but once it is familiar, it is manageable.
The Bad
The biggest grudge of mine against the service is that, after I make my payment from the Citibank site, and I get an acknowledgement from the Citibank site, the IRCTC site fails to acknowledge the transaction. So, I end up making the transaction in my bank account, but without a ticket.
This has happened twice to me so far, once in 2005, and once today (August 2006). But, it doesn’t happen always; it booked fine for one ticket. Also, they do respond by email, and rectify the problem, but it does waste a lot of time, and heart-beats (especially if the bill amount is significant).
Update
I tried again today (the same day as above) and it went through fine now. My account has been debited twice, and I am hoping that one of the transactions will be reverted. I will update this review, when that happens.
Btw, this issue seems to be a frequent problem. The FAQ on the site says this,
Q. While booking, the amount was debited but ticket not booked. What should I do?
A. If for some reason, you could not see the ticket confirmation page, please check your "Booked Tickets" list, wherein the details of all the successfully booked tickets would be available. If you do not see the desired transaction on this list, it means that the ticket has not been booked. The amount debited would be credited back to you in full without levying any charges. You may retry the transaction for booking your ticket. If you face this problem very often please let us know immediately.
Another update
I got the following mail from IRCTC, and the amount was refunded. (I am now changing the product recommedation to yes but with the caveat that, avoid using Citibank payement gateway).
Dear Customer,
The refund of Rs. 8864.00 for the transaction tried by you under reference no.xxxxxxx which has failed and later found that the payment has been debited to your card account has been credited to your card account at 08/24/2006 05:47:53 AM.
We suggest you to please retry the transaction, if not booked already. The booked tickets history can be checked to view the list of all tickets booked by you.
Warm regards,
care@irctc