I had made the following hotel booking through Indiatimes website, on Oct 9, 2006 for a Hotel in Agra; date of stay was 5th Nov 2006.
But on arriving at the hotel, the hotel staff, stated that no payment had been received by them whatsoever!
Consider the fact that my credit was billed way back in 9th Oct 2006 and now it was 05th Nov 2006 nearly a month and Indiatimes had simply been sitting on my money!
Even after numerous phone calls to Indiatimes Helpline and spending many anxious and traumatic hours nothing happened.
Indiatimes made no effort to make good the payment charged on my card to the hotel.
Instead of sightseeing in Agra I was forced to spend most of time being put on hold by helpline staff, and I my mobile was in roaming!
Each person would come online ask the whole story again and again and then put me on hold for 10-15mins at a time! This happened quite a few times!
What the hell kind of an organisation is this!
At the end, inspite of having a confirmed booking and acknowledgment from Indiatimes for the payment received from me, I had to pay the Hotel in cash for the room!!!
It was actually one of the Indiatimes helpline staff who recommended that I pay for the room and then get in touch again with Indiatimes after I return to get my money back!
This is ridiculous!
They had billed me the money for booking the Room, and not made any payment to the hotel, then expect me to ultimately pay the hotel, and to add insult to injury I have to again contact Indiatimes to get my money back after more than a month!
In the first place this sort of thing should not have happened at all!
2nd Indiatimes helpline staff render the most unprofessional service in this industry I have come across!
3rd now that Indiatimes staff acknowledged the goof up on their part; Indiatimes should have automatically reversed the charge on my credit card with atleast an apology!
I have still not received my money back!
I have not come across this kind of ridiculous service from any other company, even the government run Tourism website bookings are good!
My sincere advice is DO NOT USE INDIATIMES if you value peace of mind.