The ordeal continues- Its All about a NAME.

As everyone read the previous post on my special experience with The resort hotel, I have another problem now, it seems the ordeal wants to continue, all my life problems will never leave me or let me have one day of relief. Something or the other keeps hampering, Although I understand this is just a minor issue , people have much bigger problems to handle.

But when little little small small issues get together they seem to take a toil on you. Right so let me give you an update on the previous one ..

07th may 2014 :- I have now received the Cheque for the amount, I had paid . Wish I had blogged and written on Twitter 2 months ago , I could have saved myself the pain. Why could the people at the hotel not do it at the First time , is still a mystery. Thank you all for the concern in the last post. The cheque was couriered to my house in india. So I am very thankful to the people at the Resort.

BUT this has brought another headache now, My father had a account which was used for his salary etc, It was joint account with my Mom, After my Father passed away My Mom and My uncle went to the bank and got it changed to a new account or however they did, and Joint it with me. When they were filling the form , or who ever was filling the form wrote my name wrong, and since My Mom can’t read or write english , she was None the wiser, the Account got made .. in the name of BIKRAM SINGH MANN .. It is a joint account with my Mom.

The Cheque that has been issued by the Resort is in the name of BIKRAMJIT SINGH MANN.

I had asked a friend to go to the bank to get it deposited , they have refused to deposit it because of the Name difference. Hence all the pallava all over again. It’s not the fault of the Resort as that’s the name under which I had booked and emailed them all the time.

I have again had to phone the Resort to tell them what has happened , I was surprised that they put me through the Accounts department directly and Someone actually Talked to me .. and THEY WERE VERY VERY VERYYYYYYYYYY POLITE, thank you to that gentleman (if any of you readers or my friends have bombarded them with phonecalls etc, then it could be because of that too, or maybe almost three months gap made them do that) but nevertheless, they were very polite . He asked me to email the issue to him, and also courier back the wrong cheque to them, then they will re-issue the cheque. FINGERS CROSSED , it will work like a dream everything will be smooth.

BUT… yeah I know there is ALWAYS a BUT.. but what makes me angry (again I know .. doesn’t take much to make me angry these days) , this is common sense , why can’t the bank just accept it , As you can see the cheque is A/C Payee , so there is a proper trial of where the money has come, and where it is going to .. Tomorrow if the bank thinks some other BIKRAMJIT will come and complain where is his cheque then they can find out without a problem what has happened.

Secondly Today they are saying they are having a problem to Deposit the cheque, I have just been to india and withdrawn money with the name BIKRAMJIT, No one batted an eyelid. , Also when they were changing the account after my Dad , did NO ONE see the documentation. I am sure some sort of documentation was provided to the bank and whatever was provided would have had the name BIKRAMJIT SINGH MANN.. Can I sue them for being negligent then 🙂

Here In UK I have never had any problems, I have deposited cheques in my account named.. Mr. B.S.Mann , or Mr. B.Mann or Just Mr. Mann , I have even deposited a cheque with the name BIK MANN. Till now I use to believe what’s in a name .. it’s the person one should know but I have failed miserably.

It’s not just a problem with this bank I have had during my visit I had another with ICICI bank (@ICICI), but I am sure you don’t want to hear another SOB story, So I will keep that Rant for some other time.

As such because of the gap that I was away many of my friends have forgotten me and stopped visiting me , making you all read more sob stories will surly make you all vanish too 🙂 and I don’t want that to happen , now do I ?

Maybe there is something wrong with me 🙂

*************************************************************************************************

ok here’s something to have a think about .. when we were kids and we were all learning the alphabets to English language. A – B – C – D ..

How did you go about it .. did you all Rhyme while saying the alphabets loud, I mean One Alphabet at one time .. A (gap) B (gap) C and so on ..

or Did you all go like this

a b c d e f g h i j k

elmenop

q r s t u v w x y z 🙂

I do hope you get my stupid Jokes now…

The Resort hotel – Mumbai

UPDATE:-
07th may 2014 :- I have now received the Cheque for the amount, I had paid . Wish I had blogged and written on Twitter 2 months ago , I could have saved myself the pain. Why could the people at the hotel not do it at the First time , is still a mystery. Thank you all for the concern..

I have till now been to a lot of countries and different cities in india, even here in UK I have visited a lot of places , checked into hotels to stay for the night or more, In all my life I have never had any problem at any of the places I have stayed.

This year when I was planning to come to india , I had a plan to stay in Mumbai for a couple of days so as i could meet my friends. Someone suggested me the name of The resort hotel (@theresortmumbai). So i went ahead and booked, I called them before hand and they were very polite , so I went online booked the room and paid in full. Their website takes you to a third-party portal for payment.

So a couple of days later I rang the people to confirm , thankfully the room was booked all confirmed.. I did not bother about the email.

As it happened the plans got changed and I no longer needed the place to stay as my friend from pune planned something else , and here is where the NIGHTMARE started.

15th February :- I wrote an email asking the hotel to cancel the room, No reply came.

16th February :- I called the office , I think it was just about 5pm in evening india time The lady on the phone asked me to call “TOMMORROW” , as the accounts department had closed.

17th February:- I called again to be told the guy has not come and I should call tomorrow again, I then emailed them.

18th february:- received the following email as a reply..

“Dear Mr Bikram
Sorry for the trouble you have faced. Sir you need to cancel the booking through the hotel website only. We cannot cancel the booking verbally.
Thanks and regards
Ajeet nayak”

But to my utter dismay the cancel button doesn’t exist on the site. you can book AND PAY on their official website but can’t cancel, After trying my own clicking every button on the site I managed to find the cancel button , but this took a lot of my time and at least 10 to 15 phone calls , I was passed from one person to another , so much so that a guy actually said to me that If I am having so much problem I should call the PA to the general manager. He gave me her number , So I call this lady who at first tried to pass me on to someone else, but then when I told her the whole story, she apologised and said If I could call her in half hour as she was driving.

NOW, usually people who are in the wrong call you back , but hey that does not work , I told the lady I will call her in ONE HOUR, giving her plenty of time to sort out things. So after an hour I called again and GUESS WHAT SHE DID.. in all her intelligence passed the phone to a guy , who I think was playing cricket because I could hear a lot of shouting and Out , OUT etc etc and other cricketing words.. Now this gentleman again tells me the same thing “if I have done a booking online , I got to cancel it also online.. ” or call a Mr. Sagar who deals with the ONLINE side of the hotel.

This Mr. Sagar is a person who is very hard to contact, I called and left at least 2 or 3 messages on his voice mail saying I am having problems, I had no response.. finally late at night I found how to get to this dubious cancel button . You go to their MAIN OFFICIAL Website , then at the bottom we see the Follow us icons for facebook, twitter etc etc in the end is a Blogspot.. You click that ..

Go to a another link .. and do you think you can see the Cancel button .. You must be joking .. Not that easy , You click the Online booking icon at the bottom of the screen

and then you see a cancel\modify button ..

Click that button you go to another web page 🙂

So I went there entered my booking id, pressed the Cancel button 🙂 NOTHING happens, I tried a few times when all that did not work , I wrote another email AFTER calling the hotel and talking to the lovely lady. Also an Email to this elusive Mr. Sagar. this is still the 18th of February. I was very very polite so far requesting every time..

20th February :- Another Email to Mr. sagar , along with a couple of voicemail on his phone at different times.

22nd February :- I finally get a reply from Mr. Sagar which says the Following

“Dear Bikramjit, Sorry for late reply as due to tech issue I didn’t received your mails in my inbox. As per your request we will cancel your booking and will process full refund for the same.
Due to URL issues webpage is not supporting online cancelation TAB.
Best Regards
Sagar Chandane
Corporate Online Revenue Manager
The Resort,Mumbai H.O.
K.Raheja Corp. Pvt. Ltd.,
Raheja Tower,Plot no. C-30, G-Block,
Bandra Kurla Complex,Bandra East,
Mumbai : 400 051
Tel. No : 022 – 265654239
Mobile No : +91 9819744321
E-mail id : rev.mgr@theresortmumbai.com ” ”

Finally I found out, how great the communication is between the Online Team and the team that is running the Hotel , because none of the people that I had talked to on phone had any idea , that the online cancellation was not working. I must add here that by now the lady at the reception started to recognise my voice , the moment I said Hello, She would say Hello Mr. Mann, Hasn’t Mr. Sagar got back to you . 🙂 .. so to that lady.. THANK YOU , for always being so polite

2nd March :- 10 days go by no refund , Another Email to Mr. Sagar, along with the usual voice mails.

5th March :- I was mad by then and fuming so I wrote an email to Everyone.. “rev.mgr” , Lobby Manager , Reservation , Front Office Manager . The email was Not Polite. It was in Bold, Capital letter throughout and highlighted RED..

DO you think anyone from this hotel lot would have any decency to reply to that , OH NO.. it did not work.

12th March:- I email again , Requesting the people to at least give me a contact with whom I can talk and get this sorted — NO RESPONSE

31st MArch :- By now I had been to india and Back.. still no sign or reply from anyone , Not a single person from the any of the departments who were CC’ed in the emails responded. I emailed again. This Time again the email was in capitals, Bold and highlighted in RED.

LOTTERY time it was .. I got a reply the very next day .. So the people only work when shouted at 🙂

1st April :- I get another reply from Mr. Sagar
Dear Bikram,
We are truly apologies for inconvenience which you have faced while coordinating for your booking refund.
I have given approval for your booking refund it will reflect in your account in 07 to 10 working days.
For fast process if possible please provide us your bank account details so we can deposit cheque .
Best Regards
Sagar Chandane

Now this Approval as far as I remember had been given before my trip to india, as I can clearly remember the lady on phone telling me that , she has had a word with Mr. Sagar and he has approved it.. BUT let us give them the benefit of doubt and agree that Mr. sagar gave the nod on 1st april 🙂

I thought I was in Luck finally they will do something , So I replied on 2nd april Telling them they can Refund the money to the credit card used , Or they send a A/C payee cheque to the address and I will ask someone to deposit in my indian bank, I in my STUPIDITY also thanked Mr. Sagar for a Quick Reply.. OH WHAT A SHAME..

A MONTH PASSED ..

1st MAY 2014 :- I had to write back to Mr. Sagar , reminding him .

2nd MAY 2014 :- I sent a Tweet to them .. @theresortmumbai Can you REFUND my money please .. I have been requesting since 16th February

3rd MAY 2014 :- They Replied – Hi the payment is under process, kindly furnish us with your postal address so that we can courier the cheque by next week., so another 7 days to go ..

I have replied to them “@theresortmumbai The details are with EACH email address , Reservations, front office, Lobby manager , Mr. sagar .. Sent on 1st April”

I am still waiting for that refund.. now people tell me What else can I do. I have thought that maybe Each one of you who are in India can Make ONE phone call everyday to these people asking them have they refunded the money I have about half a dozen phone numbers of people whom I have been asked to Talk to and NONE of these “MORONS” have any idea how to refund or what can be done .. It seems this Hotel had a refund request for the first time in their History. Or can tweet them on their twitter handle @theresortmumbai..

I would love to write all the names that I have been talking to but I shall refrain as some of them might be decent human beings but JUST can’t be bothered to do their work, or do what they are being paid for and understand How they are harassing me … I had first thought of publishing all the emails that I had sent but I thought otherwise , this should be enough of a wake up call for them .. BUT THEN DO YOU THINK THEY ARE INTERESTED .. NA

Any help will be greatly appreciated, If anyone of you can go and pick the cheque it would be great, I would prefer giving the cheque to some charity or just throw it in the bin , rather than have these bunch of CROOKS keep it .. A Week more and it will be 3 MONTHS of harassment caused by the so called Prestigious hotel. They are worst then the politicians even they have some shame .