Club Mahindra members are not exactly having a great holiday

Moneylife Digital Team 19 November 2010

The list of complaints against the Mahindra group company from members is increasing. But they are not being addressed appropriately

There appears to be little respite for Mahindra Holidays and Resorts, as the list of complaints from dissatisfied customers continues to grow. The complaints range from unsatisfactory practices and deficiency in services to unfulfilled promises. While very little is known about how successful the company has been in redressing the complaints, a letter addressed to Mahindra Holidays managing director Ramesh Ramanathan recently raises the lack of clarity over the business model that this Mahindra group company follows.

"Overall people are not very clear on the business model Club Mahindra follows. There is no one reference document to it and the typical timeshare model does not apply in this case," Bhupesh Gupta, who has been a member of Club Mahindra Holidays since 2004, wrote in his complaint. "Bits and pieces of information come to light, surprising me every time. I am surprised why Mahindra Holidays reports resort occupancy levels at the time of quarterly report to shareholders. What significance does this have to its timeshare business? Who will take the hit of this under-utilisation, the members or the business?"

Mr Gupta says that he has not received a reply from the company for some time and so addressed a copy of the letter to Moneylife, which raised the issue with the company. However, the explanations by Mr Ramesh and chairman Arun Nanda were not very enlightening. Without answering the issue raised directly, both tried to describe how "customer centric" the company has been.

Mr Ramesh says, "Our surveys done both internally and independently prove that we have a very happy set of members who rate the experience at our resorts extremely high. I am happy to share with you that RCI have awarded the Gold Crown status to 10 of our resorts… more than 25% of our new members sign up through referrals by existing members, denoting a high level of delight with the brand." RCI is the largest timeshare vacation network in the world.

Strangely, in a recent interview with MoneyControl, Mr Nanda had admitted that an internal check has revealed that the company was lacking in many aspects and that it required some cleansing operations to contain the damage to its membership base. Club Mahindra is said to have experienced a 30% drop in membership sales revenue over the past few months.

It is very likely that this is the outcome of the numerous complaints of members that appear to go unresolved. Consumer review websites like mouthshut.com and www.consumercomplaints.in list some of them. In one recent note, Devyani Chakraborty says she is still awaiting a refund on cancellation of her membership, which was sold to her a few days before during Durga Puja. In one post today, Mr Sandeep said he has failed to encash a free holiday voucher coupon after he was told that there were no rooms available in any of the resorts in any destination.

Other complaints refer to lack of proper exit options, which, the Mahindra Holidays chairman said were very few. However, there is no explanation as to why members have to go through an excruciating exit mechanism and lose 30-40% of their membership fees in the process.

Many of the timeshare membership holders have complained that the "flexibility" option, which enables the users to transfer, exchange and split their holidays, have led to under-utilisation of the resorts. Moreover, they accuse the administration of favouritism, which enables only some particular members to avail good reservation dates and facilities.

But while members are allegedly denied facilities, resorts and rooms are used for other events and availed by outsiders. Many members, after repeated failures, give up on making reservations, which leaves many resorts with vacancies. There are complaints about unsatisfactory services, inadequate inventory and other unfulfilled promises.

It appears from inquiries Moneylife made with some members that there is no proper grievance redressal mechanism and neither are members aware of how they can get their complaints resolved, nor are the staff equipped to deal with such situations. Another repeated mention is that staff members engage in dubious practices like lotteries, misleading members about offers and not providing proper information about the terms and conditions.

Comments

User

@thampi63

10 months ago

Club Mahindra is a Scam. They offer rooms for non members and shuts the door on members. Worst is not a single AH staff responds to you. Even if we are ready to forfeit the amount spent and discontinue, they will not respond so that balance emi will be siphoned as well! Unfortunate this organisation will be a bloat on its esteemed chairman's reputation.

fz5znfgdq5

10 months ago

Club Mahindra is fraud and has taken 176000 rupees from me

No refund and No holidays given

Really unsatisfactory policy

Cheating ideology for their valued customers

mayureshpande2020

1 year ago

Club Mahindra is fraud and has taken 64000 + 14000 from us.

No refund has been given

Please dont buy they are frauds.

Dont know how will I get my money back.

ranvipoison

2 years ago

11th may 2022 rakesh chandra taken 3000 rupees as token money in cash n till today he is not refunding my money those guys from kolkata club mahindra 50 times called him but he is making excuses

riny agarwal

5 years ago

Hi, is there any way to file a case against them or to resale the membership?

arnab.sen44

Replied to riny agarwal comment 1 week ago

If you already know it's scam or of no value, why would you want to resale it to another victim?

Deepak Lohchab

5 years ago

Plz add me Whatsapp group 9654433223

Vikrant Karande

5 years ago

Yes, a lot of people faced same issues with the Club Mahindra Membership, they felt fooled and now they aren't haappy and wants to transfer their membership. A lot of articles I read these days where how their it was their financial mistake of buying club mahindra membership. But in my case I have seen it not as a mistake why dont you read my experience here https://bit.ly/2Ha1VhN

Still if you feel that its a mistake do comment on this article.

jatin nayak

6 years ago

watsup group bana ke sabhi ko unite hoke consumer court me file lagani chahiye,
aur mene advocate se baat ki thi jisme usne kaha hai ki sales executive ke against local court me 420 me ek case file karo...is month me, me 420 ka case file kar dunga...aap sab bhi apne apne kisi vakil se milkar fraud ka case sales executive ke against kijiye....for any inqiury call and msg on 9928019007 watsup number...united we win.....

Deepak Lohchab

Replied to jatin nayak comment 5 years ago

Sir kise ke 420 complaint case Me FIR hue hai plz help me my no 9654433223

Aniruddh Sinha

Replied to jatin nayak comment 6 years ago

This is a watsapp group of unsatisfied member of club mahendra
https://chat.whatsapp.com/F0YzFDHTJXiGWmDSQp2CoK

Deepak Lohchab

Replied to Aniruddh Sinha comment 5 years ago

Sir plZ add me Whatsapp group 9654433223

jatin nayak

6 years ago

Aniruddh Sinha

Replied to jatin nayak comment 6 years ago