I had booked a round trip to Shirdi on 28th November, 2005 online on
http://www.rajnationalexpress.in.
1. After entering the credit card details on the site and submitting the same, my browser displayed a message that the data was being submitted to an insecure site and whether I would like to continue. HERE THE FACT BECAME CLEAR THAT THE SITE IS NOT SSL PROTECTED (Secure Socket Layer protection is a must for all online transactions).
2. After submitting the details, when I entered the credit card details and submitted the same, the site showed me an error ’This page does not exist’ and no further confirmation was given. Therefore I once again entered the card details and re-submitted the same. Even then, the same error message was displayed. To clear my doubts as to the error and to confirm whether the ticket was indeed booked or not, I called up their customer service number on 1600-227-600.
Point No.1 - THE HELPLINE NUMBER AVAILABILITY IS PATHETIC AND I HAD TO TRY FOR 20 MINUTES TO GET THROUGH THE NUMBER.
Point No.2 - Even after connecting to the number and speaking to the customer service executive, NOT ONE OF THE EXECUTIVES WERE COMPETENT ENOUGH TO ANSWER MY QUERY. I was made to call up after an hour and I did so 4-5 times in a timeframe of 4 hours and EVERY TIME I WAS MADE TO PUT ON HOLD FOR 10-15 MINUTES.
3. I visited the Borivli Branch to confirm my ticket and was informed that the same was confirmed. I was informed that the bus timing mentioned on the site i.e.
21:00 hours was the starting time from Nariman Point and that the bus would reach Bandra at 22:30 hours. NO WHERE WAS IT MENTIONED ON THE SITE THAT THE TIME OF DEPARTURE IS THE DEPARTURE TIME FROM NARIMAN POINT.
5. Finally on the day of my departure, in the morning, I called up Raj Travels office once again to confirm the timings of the bus. To my utter shock, I was informed that just a day before, a decision had been taken to depart the bus from Bandra itself instead of Nariman Point and that the bus would depart from Bandra at 21:00. NOW IF I HAD NOT CONFIRMED THE TIMINGS OUT OF MY OWN VOLITION, IT WAS SURE THAT I WOULD HAVE MISSED THE BUS.
All these incidents just bring to light the utter callousness with which Raj Travels is proceeding with their new venture. If Raj Travels is not geared up to service its customer is their satisfaction, then they should refrain from exhibiting such boisterous claims in big advertisements.