This story started at one busy afternoon in my office. I was stretching myself like that blue-dressed cartoon of "Boomers" to meet a deadline - then came a call in my cell from "Her Majesty". A small request(how moderate I am, in times) to arrange our flight ticket from Jodhpur on 13th Nov, which was a clear 20 days ahead on that afternoon. I just could shoot a mail downstairs to Sheetal(name changed), who takes care of our Travel - Desk, on behalf of a Travel Agent company. Next day I got my tickets delivered to my desk. It was booked through a website ezzego1.com. She used her credit card to book my ticket.
I just signed cheque to her name to make the payment and thought how efficiently I managed to get rid of the assignment. I never knew that such would be only second paragraph of my story. The tour went all well till evening of 13th Nov. As we bid goodbye to my bro-in-law family at Jodhpur airport, we got informed that our tour has been extended for few more hours. The scheduled Indian Flight to Delhi would take-off at 10-30 P.M. instead of scheduled 6-15 P.M., We utilized the extension in good mood, did some quick shopping at Jodhpur, had a great dinner with Old Monk Rum in an open Air Restaurant accompanied by Sanjoys with whom we criss-crossed Rajasthan for last few days. As we were getting ready to start for airport, I received another call in my cell-phone and was informed that the flight got cancelled.
Since no other flight was plying on that night we had no option left but to cancel our ticket as the next scheduled flight was a good 24 hrs away. I called airport, cancelled our ticket and understood that I would get full refund from my travel agent once I go and report about the cancellation. The same was duly addressed to Sheetal as well. Relieved, I thought to myself for saving some quick-bucks in the process. An e-mail was shoot from to get the refund on the cancelled ticket. One, two, three . days gone by without any reply from Ezzego. Then I tried their call-centre number and I was told that things are under process and I would get my refund within 48 hours. Good, I thought, such call -centers things are really doing marvelous jobs in India. A few days passed, I tried them again and was told that such refund from the Govt owned Airlines would take at least 21 days time. I was annoyed, but well, what else can be done we are quite customized to wait for such time, don’t we? A month and half passed by then I called them for good news and I was just shocked! Somebody clearly told me in her cheaply polished English that they do not have any reference of booking. She was asking for a booking reference number which was not there in the print-out I had. I told her a hell list of numbers like booking date, journey date, ticket number, PNR number, all. But she needed those numbers only which my poor piece of paper did not have.
I went back to Sheetal and got another shock, she told that at the time of booking the said website had some problems and hence she called up helpline number which was connected to a telephone gateway where she typed her credit card numbers to make the ticket. Above lines were repeated to almost all the staff worked in that particular call-centre, Sheetal and I used to make calls to them almost every alternate day, we repeated our story and at the end of 5 - 10 minutes we were given a carrot of that 48 hours assurance. I tried for a physical address of that office, and put that name in the Google box and to my surprise a good numbers of web pages, one of them is the website home page and rest of are from blogs. One thing in common in all those pages - Every one of them termed Ezzego1 is a big CHEAT! I almost lost any hope of my refund but kept on calling them, I lost some momentum in my normal lifestyle. The total episode surprised me too much. How come a Travel Agent company can do such thing - it was a very obvious case of cheating. At some point of time I thought to approach the consumer court, but could not manage to brave the word "court". However, I tried some tricks while calling them, like "I am recording this teleconference and would be using the same if required in proper place" at some time when the call-centre person kept on assuring that payment would be made in next 48 hours.
Sometime, I tried "Could you please ask your bosses what they would like to prefer - a consumer court or media report on such kind of cheating!" The main problem in this case was that I had to repeat the total incident to the call - centre staff time and time again. I even knew the sequels of their questions as well. The most disgusting part of the story that all of them got the detail information and promised blatantly that payment would be released within 48 hours. The entire process same. At this point of time I demanded a call-back from them on the proceeding and fortunately one of them took up this case - she asked us the copy of the credit card statement showing the money was paid to ezzego. The same was done. After digesting the information she then asked for the endorsement from Airlines that the Tickets were cancelled - It was a bit difficult as by that time it was almost a case of 3 months old, the PNR was not valid. Anyway, that too was arranged, courtesy Sheetal. Then again they slept on those documents till I make another call to them on March 6th. I almost shouted all through the call duration of 23 minutes. Fortunately I got my refund on the next day. It took 4 months to get back the refund of a flight which did not take-off. Just add the mental agony and call charges to it. Then only you would also compel to forward the message to everybody you know that EZZEGO IS A BIG CHEAT!