I recently booked a South Africa tour with Thrilophilia, and I must warn others about the dreadful experience I had with this company. The sales team at Thrilophilia is utterly unprofessional and lacks any real knowledge about the services they are selling. In fact, none of their staff have traveled to South Africa themselves, which made me question how they could provide accurate and reliable information. They excel at faking expertise and providing false assurances.
Before I made the payment, their sales team was incredibly responsive, calling me back on every occasion. However, once I made the full payment, the situation drastically changed. They stopped responding to my calls and insisted that I only communicate through email with their customer care team. It was extremely frustrating to suddenly be treated as a faceless customer, especially after I had paid a significant sum in advance.
I paid a total of 8.25 lakh INR plus an additional 2 lakh for other travel expenses. After settling this amount, the communication turned into a nightmare. The sales team, who had previously been eager to assist, completely disappeared. Instead, I was forced to explain my concerns over and over again to different customer care agents, none of whom seemed to have any understanding of my situation. It felt like I was starting from scratch with each new interaction.
In an attempt to resolve my issues, I repeatedly asked for an emergency contact number for assistance during my trip. To my shock, they provided a South African number that was never answered. When I finally got through, I was told to send an email for assistance! This completely undermines the concept of "emergency support"—if I had been in a dire situation, I would have been expected to email for help rather than receive immediate assistance.
As for their South African suppliers, they were just as incompetent. When I inquired about basic details such as rentals, entry tickets, and routes, I was told they had no information. These suppliers had no knowledge of the itinerary I had booked, and many of the services I had paid for in advance were never provided. In fact, I later learned that Thrilophilia had not even paid their dues to these suppliers, leaving us stranded at various entry gates and activity locations. Their subcontractors were openly complaining about Thrilophilia’s failure to pay, further revealing the extent of the company’s incompetence.
The situation took a more shocking turn when I discovered that Thrilophilia had failed to pay the TCS(Tax Collected at Source) on my payments, despite having deducted it from me at the time of booking. This is not only unprofessional but could potentially be part of a larger tax evasion issue, which I intend to pursue legally.
To make matters worse, when I threatened legal action and informed them that I had recorded all of our telephone conversations, they attempted to bribe me with a free domestic trip to silence me. This further highlighted their lack of integrity and willingness to cover up their mistakes at any cost.
In conclusion, my experience with Thrilophilia was an absolute disaster from start to finish. The company misrepresented itself at every turn, and I felt cheated, harassed, and ignored. I would strongly advise anyone considering booking with Thrilophilia to look elsewhere. They are nothing more than a scam operation, with no regard for customer service, professionalism, or ethical business practices. I will be pursuing legal action against them and will also be reporting their fraudulent activities to the relevant authorities.