Cheated by Royal Goan Beach Club
Complaint
Arun Gupta
Country: India
COMPLAINT AGAINST ROYAL RESORTS – GOA (KARMA RESORTS INTL)*
From;
Arun Gupta
Baroda, Gujarat
Cell : 9825045237
Sir,
I along with my wife, son & daughter happen to be visiting Goa in May-June2010 where
we came across a person asking us to scratch cards. He was from the marketing team of the Royal resorts, Goa. Innocuously me, my wife and children had to visit the resort at Baga(Monte Rio) and had to go through their marketing presentation / session with their customer executives. Theirs was a timed sharing resort and they were looking for prospective customers.
They started their session and I told them that I didn’t find their product convincing. The session continued and went through many hours. They were trying to sell their product very hard and I was not seeing enough reasons to buy it. After the presentation and a visit round the resort, the customers’ executive now had the company of another manager (accounts manager) who started with quoting the membership cost i.e. more then 5.5lacs, which I found exorbitant. He then started offering discounts for us (special case as he insisted) and came up with a figure which he said that we should not refuse. I still wasn’t sure and said that I needed time but they have a company policy of signing *“TODAY*”. I found this policy very unethical as a customer we needed time to check various aspects but they said that was the company policy. Finally the accounts manager came up with a rate and a policy of alternate year membership for Rs 1,40,000/- and said that I could avail it for a down payment by paying 10% of membership amount i.e. Rs 14,000/- addition to this they insisted me to opt for loan wherein there will be 1% processing fee, and initially for six months there will not be interest charged from you (as a valuable customer). I thought of opting the membership hence I signed the agreement (they have allotted membership number (RIHC2/030610/3791) keeping in view that I will pay rest of the amount in six months time. I made this transaction thru my HDFC Platinum Credit Card. This is all on 3rd of June 2010. On 4th of June while going thru all the documents I found this aspect demeaning as it showed discrimination. In one of the agreement they have agreed for 6months without interest whereas they have calculated 19% interest from the day payable. On 4th June I tried to reach them on given phone numbers (as I was returning back from Goa on 6th early morning) but no one has picked the calls. After regressive attempts (in evening at around 6pm) one of the office representatives pickedup the call and arrogantly said nothing can be happened since I have signed the agreement.
I was totally stun and was not able to understand what to do. Next day on 5th June 2010I thought of calling one of my legal adviser and he asked me to make call to HDFC Credit Card customer care and lodge a complaint not to disbursed the swapped amount and cancel the transaction made on 3rd of June to PRESTIGE HOLIDAY RESORTBARDEZ IND vide complaint number 10156797701 dtd 5th June 2010. The HDFC Credit Card Customer Care representative told me that amount is already disbursed to the merchant hence you should also lodge a complaint by mail to customerservices.cards@hdfcbank.com. As I was suppose to leave GOA on 6th of June 2010 I felt that I have already lodged a complaint once I reach back I will be writing mail on said ID and I wrote mail on7th of June referring lodged complaint number and stated to cancel the said transaction as I have been duped by PRESTIGE HOLIDAY RESORTBARDEZ IND giving all the reason thereof.
On 7th of june I received a welcome mail from Royal Goan Beach Club, At Haathi Mahal, Cavellosim, Mobor, Salcete, Goa – 403 731 ,TEL: (0832) 287 5261/ 2/ 3/ 4/5/6/7/8/9 & 2871661 Fax: 0832 – 2871667 E-mail: collectionsindia@royalperspective.com.
On 10th of June 2010 I received another mail from Ivan Gonsalves, Royal Goan Beach Club –at Haathi Mahal, Goa to pay the EMI Rs. 3269/- from July 2010 onwards by sending 12 – 24 Post Dated Cheques drawn in favour of “Parshuram Finance Pvt. Ltd.”.
In reply, raised again the concerns and asked to cancel the transaction, keeping HDFC Credit Card Customer care in loop. The HDFC Credit Card has informed me once the Merchant “PRESTIGE HOLIDAY RESORTBARDEZ IND” cancel the transaction then we will be crediting the said amount back to your Credit Card.
However, after frequent follow up with PRESTIGE HOLIDAY RESORTBARDEZ IND they called me and informed that money paid was non-refundable. I was really
shocked and again felt completely cheated.
At last On 28th June 2010 I wrote back to them giving week time i.e. 5th of July 2010 if the transaction is not cancelled will forced to take legal action keeping MEDIA informed. Unfortunately, I have not yet received any reply as well as cancellation of the transaction.
Now with no compromise in sight I wish to start proceedings against them as
they have cheated me. It also reflects on our consumers’
misfortune where I feel these people cheat a lot of people like me and get
away with it. In anticipation of suitable action being initiated against the
said company so that they do not continue to swindle people of their hard
earned money, and the public in general at large are made aware of such
restrictive and malpractice being followed by the company.
The details of the company are given below.
The Royal Holiday Club
Royal Goan Beach Club at Haathi Mahal
Cavelossim, Mobor, Salcette
Goa – 403731
Tele No. +91-832-2871661, 2875261 – 64
Fax +91-832-2871667
Email : collectionsindia@royalperspective.com
From;
Arun Gupta
Baroda, Gujarat
Cell : 9825045237
Sir,
I along with my wife, son & daughter happen to be visiting Goa in May-June2010 where
we came across a person asking us to scratch cards. He was from the marketing team of the Royal resorts, Goa. Innocuously me, my wife and children had to visit the resort at Baga(Monte Rio) and had to go through their marketing presentation / session with their customer executives. Theirs was a timed sharing resort and they were looking for prospective customers.
They started their session and I told them that I didn’t find their product convincing. The session continued and went through many hours. They were trying to sell their product very hard and I was not seeing enough reasons to buy it. After the presentation and a visit round the resort, the customers’ executive now had the company of another manager (accounts manager) who started with quoting the membership cost i.e. more then 5.5lacs, which I found exorbitant. He then started offering discounts for us (special case as he insisted) and came up with a figure which he said that we should not refuse. I still wasn’t sure and said that I needed time but they have a company policy of signing *“TODAY*”. I found this policy very unethical as a customer we needed time to check various aspects but they said that was the company policy. Finally the accounts manager came up with a rate and a policy of alternate year membership for Rs 1,40,000/- and said that I could avail it for a down payment by paying 10% of membership amount i.e. Rs 14,000/- addition to this they insisted me to opt for loan wherein there will be 1% processing fee, and initially for six months there will not be interest charged from you (as a valuable customer). I thought of opting the membership hence I signed the agreement (they have allotted membership number (RIHC2/030610/3791) keeping in view that I will pay rest of the amount in six months time. I made this transaction thru my HDFC Platinum Credit Card. This is all on 3rd of June 2010. On 4th of June while going thru all the documents I found this aspect demeaning as it showed discrimination. In one of the agreement they have agreed for 6months without interest whereas they have calculated 19% interest from the day payable. On 4th June I tried to reach them on given phone numbers (as I was returning back from Goa on 6th early morning) but no one has picked the calls. After regressive attempts (in evening at around 6pm) one of the office representatives pickedup the call and arrogantly said nothing can be happened since I have signed the agreement.
I was totally stun and was not able to understand what to do. Next day on 5th June 2010I thought of calling one of my legal adviser and he asked me to make call to HDFC Credit Card customer care and lodge a complaint not to disbursed the swapped amount and cancel the transaction made on 3rd of June to PRESTIGE HOLIDAY RESORTBARDEZ IND vide complaint number 10156797701 dtd 5th June 2010. The HDFC Credit Card Customer Care representative told me that amount is already disbursed to the merchant hence you should also lodge a complaint by mail to customerservices.cards@hdfcbank.com. As I was suppose to leave GOA on 6th of June 2010 I felt that I have already lodged a complaint once I reach back I will be writing mail on said ID and I wrote mail on7th of June referring lodged complaint number and stated to cancel the said transaction as I have been duped by PRESTIGE HOLIDAY RESORTBARDEZ IND giving all the reason thereof.
On 7th of june I received a welcome mail from Royal Goan Beach Club, At Haathi Mahal, Cavellosim, Mobor, Salcete, Goa – 403 731 ,TEL: (0832) 287 5261/ 2/ 3/ 4/5/6/7/8/9 & 2871661 Fax: 0832 – 2871667 E-mail: collectionsindia@royalperspective.com.
On 10th of June 2010 I received another mail from Ivan Gonsalves, Royal Goan Beach Club –at Haathi Mahal, Goa to pay the EMI Rs. 3269/- from July 2010 onwards by sending 12 – 24 Post Dated Cheques drawn in favour of “Parshuram Finance Pvt. Ltd.”.
In reply, raised again the concerns and asked to cancel the transaction, keeping HDFC Credit Card Customer care in loop. The HDFC Credit Card has informed me once the Merchant “PRESTIGE HOLIDAY RESORTBARDEZ IND” cancel the transaction then we will be crediting the said amount back to your Credit Card.
However, after frequent follow up with PRESTIGE HOLIDAY RESORTBARDEZ IND they called me and informed that money paid was non-refundable. I was really
shocked and again felt completely cheated.
At last On 28th June 2010 I wrote back to them giving week time i.e. 5th of July 2010 if the transaction is not cancelled will forced to take legal action keeping MEDIA informed. Unfortunately, I have not yet received any reply as well as cancellation of the transaction.
Now with no compromise in sight I wish to start proceedings against them as
they have cheated me. It also reflects on our consumers’
misfortune where I feel these people cheat a lot of people like me and get
away with it. In anticipation of suitable action being initiated against the
said company so that they do not continue to swindle people of their hard
earned money, and the public in general at large are made aware of such
restrictive and malpractice being followed by the company.
The details of the company are given below.
The Royal Holiday Club
Royal Goan Beach Club at Haathi Mahal
Cavelossim, Mobor, Salcette
Goa – 403731
Tele No. +91-832-2871661, 2875261 – 64
Fax +91-832-2871667
Email : collectionsindia@royalperspective.com
Comments
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It is high time our government wakes up to this fraud and especially now that a strong government is in goa. As per the court order the company is supposed to hold AGM and inform the members, which is not done,further it is within the rights of the members to demand the phone numbers of other members,at this juncture I request everybody to pass on this to their friends through social networking sites.
I am seriously thinking of legal action against the company and writing to all the media for the fraud .
.
At this juncture our issues with RGBC stands resolved.
We also take this opportunity to thank the Senior navigators of RGBC, Susan and George Lobo as well as Marcinell,Thelma,Stacy,
and Vailankani in taking extra efforts to help us realise our dream holidays.
warm regards,
subhash julka and mamta julka.
We packed our bags next month itself and off to Goa.We were welcomed in one of their resorts in South Goa,We were happy since no one asked us to pay any money.( till then we were non believers of the dictum that nothing comes for free specially in India )and if you believe we are still paying year after year for that one mistake and foolish act of ours but now have reached a point go giving up paying, fully knowing that all money paid so far will go down the drain since they are looking for an excuse to declare us defaulters and thereby cancel our membership to their advantage I will explain late how and why)
But first please read what happened next- we had very quite first day roamed around the beaches and felt very happy and proud about ourselves having won this free holiday.In the evening we were in the swimming pool when a very polite young man came and asked us how we are feeling and we spoke our heart that we are having great time and that too free of cost.He thanked us and vey politely asked us that someone from the company want time to meet us tomorrow so he fixed time for us.We were taken into their sales office and a very young and enthusiastic sales person introduced to us and we were asked to wait for his boss who finally arrived and took out a piece of paper and started explaining the benefits etc of owing membership.We went with the mind that no matter what we will not buy their membership ( we were told previous day by a couple staying there that their hit rate is 100%.The man kept of offering discount after discount and finally impressed upon us that it is a life time offer and if we don't by it today we are going to miss this opportunity for life.Twice we got up to leave and we were stopped with more free bees and offers till finally we gave in.The trick which worked that we had to decide then and there only even though we were insisting on going home and decide but to our bad luck we gave in ( i don't thing there was any other option since the young lads started becoming quite aggressive obliquely pointing to our acceptance of free stay.)
WE were given a contract of ownership of red season and later came to know there most weeks are marked red barring 1 or two rainy months.) Since they has resorts in Goa only we were told to buy separate RCI membership to exchange our high value red season week with other resorts members of RCI ( which never worked for us and we gave up our RCI membership after payments of 2-3 years.Since then we have been paying our dues annually which have gone up from 6000 in 1998 to about 25000 now.
During these 16-17 years of our membership we have availed their hospitality but have come back anguished for one reason or other.The maintenance of their apartment is so bad in some of the resorts particularly one in North Goa that we had to fight for a better room since there was seapage and fungus on the walls.Once we tried to book week during Christmas and new year and we were told that this is prime week and all resorts are already booked.When this happened no of times we had to write to Hutinson and Hutinson, their lawyer and arbitrator based in London and to our surprise our request for christmas week was immediately met with but with a caveat that we can't book this prime week for another 3 years.During our stay we talked to some of the guest and surprised to know that they were non members and they paid more then 50,000 to buy this holiday.I don't know how being a non member they could get holiday week on payment of huge sum.
Another shocker we received during one of our stay at Haathi Mahal when we were approached by a sales guy to meet him in the office.We were told that company is no longer making members like us with a 99 years lease any more where are we are right ful owners of the apartment for 99 years.Instead of that they are now making new members on a point system where you don't own an apartment but earn few points every year and can convert them into holidays and can bank these points with company like our owned week.Only caveat is that the points also expire like the initialised are certain period of time and this system is only for 25 years.We were offered to convert our ownership to this point system for obvious reasons. WE did not want to loose our ownership for the apartment and secondly we were asked to shell out huge amount in conversion charges for this. we kept refusing and he kept convincing us despereately and in the end when we totally refused to give in he started became abusive and started insulting us.We left their marketing office and gave a written complaint against him to the management. After this incident we were very disheartened and have stopped availing holidays.Our weeks are being expired year by year and we have in total paid huge amount to the company in the name of management charges.We are at a point now that we want to stop paying and the company will fore feight our week ownership and will trap someone else by selling this into new system of points which we find is a new way of coning people.
There are a few questions which come to our mind and despite raising them have not come up with any satisfactory answer.
1;One of the reasons we got trapped into this affair initially is that we were told that we will be able to rent our week with their help to any one we want and company will assist us in this.This way we will be able to recover our management charges which we pay every year.But this never happened and the reasons are not very difficult to foresee.During one of the visits to the resort we noticed that there are about 70-80 % foreigners staying there at any given time.They are mostly from UK.Now this is too much of a coincidence that owner of this company is also from UK.On few discreet inquiries we found that they are not members obviously and they have paid money to avail this holiday.Now there is so much of jargon of companies - first prestige the royal and then karma etc,so many names that it is very difficult to trace where in which name payments are received.On top of which they have a hotel unit at Haathi Mahal which can and I suspect is used to disguise to receive the payments.after all the unutilised week surrendered by us to the company after paying annual dues is utilised by the company in some way.For this reason I suspect despite advertising a number of times internationally we have have never been able to rent our week even in UK with a very low quoted price ,even though most of the foreign clients coming to Royal Goan are from there.
2 This suspicion becomes stronger with the fact that despite a court order in 2010 in favour of a member who went to the court against the company, to call a annual general body meeting and share the audited accounts with members the company has failed to do so.This order I believe is applicable to the old members who own the week and not to the point system members who don't own anything legally and hence company,s keenness to convert old ownership into the point system and make some extra money.
Regards
Dr Lokesh Kumar