This is my second review on MS. And I must say that the pathetic standards of this website - Yatra.com - have forced me to write this.
To start with, I must tell the reader that if you want to experience losing your money on the internet, Yatra.com is one good place to start. There is a good probability that you may make a purchase on the site and at the point where the money is debited from your card or bank account and you are expecting your ticket confirmation, you will get a tongue-in-cheek message displayed that kind of implies that the booking has not gone through. And what’s more, it tells you that these things keep happening. As if it is quite normal to shop on the internet and keep losing thousands of rupees everyday.
My experience with this site started on February 08, 2007. I normally do my air tickets purchase on Indiatimes.com, which has never failed me even once during the last 3-4 years. It is always reliable and prices are most reasonable. Well, on the above mentioned date, I chanced upon Yatra.com when browsing around. I had to book a ticket for two from Goa to Delhi for early May. I thought that I would try Yatra for a change since they had some flashy web interface and fancy claims.
I went through the booking process, since I thought that booking early would mean getting the tickets at a pretty reasonable price. I was quoted Rs 5148/- all-inclusive for two tickets on Air Sahara from Goa to Delhi for May 14. I confirmed the same and connected to the payment gateway to make the debit from my HDFC netbanking.
The money was debited from my account and I was awaiting the ticket confirmation details to appear on the screen when I got the following message:
"Sorry, but the flight you selected is no longer available. Its annoying, but it happens. Your card has been pre-authorized for the booking amount.This amount will be reversed at the earliest."
I was stumped and immediately wrote a mail to support@yatra.com. It took me 2 reminders over 2 days to get a one-liner from a "travel consultant" asking me to provide details of the ticket booked so that they can check whether the amount has indeed been debited from my account.
After I provided the details of the booking, I got a response after 2 days(Feb 11, 2007) as given below:
"Dear Sir, With reference to your mail, I would like to inform you that refund form has been raised for the full amount of Rs5148/-.Refundable amount would be reverted back to your card in another 14-15 working days. For further assistance, you can write us on support@yatra.com."
Can you believe an internet business site saying that the refund will be arranged after 14-15 "working days"? Even IRCTC, which is a government controlled enterprise has a pretty slick operation. If something goes wrong during your train ticket booking, you will immediately get a mail from IRCTC, first thing. And, the refund is processed within 3-4 days max with another confirmation mail.
Well, anyway, I sat still for 14-15 days on this issue, believing them. Assuming their accounts section works 5 days a week, 15 working days were up on March 2, 2007.
I have followed up with them 3 times since then. With reminder mails everyday. I have not received even a single response or acknowledgement for my e-mails. I called them 3 times. I get the automated message "Your call is important to us. A travel consultant will be with you shortly.". This message goes on forever with no one responding.
I fear that I have lost the Rs 5148/-. I am not aware of consumer action procedures and whether this would qualify for a consumer redressal case.
Still trying to get my money back. I would strongly recommend that this is one website to be avoided.
And finally, to top it all, I got a confirmed booking for the same flight when I booked through Indiatimes.com.and for the same price.
Update as on Date: March 28th, 2007:
Hi Reader,
This is to update you on the result of my above travails with yatra.com.
I sent an e-mail to one of the co-founders of the website - Manish Amin(manish.amin@yatra.com) -on March 12th giving all the details of my correspondence with their’travel consultant’.
Now I’m not sure if that e-mail played a part, but I got an immediate response from their’travel consultant’ the very next day. She said that there had been a ’problem with the payment gateway’ due to which they had been unable to refund my money. And that the money would be refunded in 7-8 working days.
Ultimately, I got the entire amount of Rs 5148/- credited to my bank account on March 22nd, 2007.
All’s well that ends well, but it was a big run-around for getting my money back. No more shopping on Yatra.com for me.once is enough!