Hi All,

I would like you all to read this before you go for a life time membership with Country Club. Life time!!! ooh!

To start with, I’ve initiated a legal battle with Country Club which is yet to mature. I’m working with a pretty good Lawyer (Thanks to Rebecca) on the proceedings.

Before I move forward in my case, I would like to know if there are people out here who are also in legal battle with Country Club.

My Lawyer told me that Country Club has lots of pending cases in most of the cities and they don’t really care legal issues such as mine. It has become a habit to them. I’m somehow determined to take my case forward in the consumer court and would like to have some inputs from people here.

I think Country Club is seriously competing with Govt Organizations in working standards. :) Probably, the Govt Orgs are already left behind.

I’ve had very bad experience with three departments at CClub (Country Club). Mktg, Admin, Customer Care.

There is absolutely no communication between these three departments.

I had given a Credit Card authorization for 20K (on Aug 26th or so) to be paid in 12 EMIs starting October. The person clearly mentioned that all credit cartds starting with ’’4384’’ are eligible for 0% EMIs. And you know what, the whole amount (20,000) was deducted within 3 days following that day (debited on Aug 29th).

I was to get a temporary card within 7 days and a Permanent membership card within 14 days.

The person who sold the membership to me switched off his mobile forever and I had no contacts to get in touch with any of the CClub officials. Not even Customer Care.

They don’t have the policy of giving any bill/ receipt against the amount you paid. They give this after sometime (I don’t know when) they literally give you nothing as a proof of the amount you pay. 1. Please make sure you don’t pay by cash to CC incase you go for CClub membership.

It took more than one month for me to get a contact. And that was of Marketing Manager. (One difference between CClub and Govt Orgs is that these people can talk in english and they are always nice on phone.)

I had conversations with the Mktg Manager for more than 2 months and all the time the Manager promised me that the amount will be credited back into my a/c.

I was also asked to send a FAX to GM - Administration to speed up the process. And you know what, I was told that the amount has been credited back to my a/c and that the reversal takes a minimum of 18 working days. After waiting for one month, I finally decided to call up again. Meanwhile, I also issued a legal notice to the Country Club Management.

Whenever you call up CClub, some (’’unaccountable’’) person receieves the call, says that the person you want to talk to is busy in a meeting (even we people never have so many meetings!) and that they will make sure the responsible person gets back to you. Whenever this happens, there is a 99% probability that you won’t get a call. 2. Make sure you have Email IDs of all the Managers incase you go for CClub membership.

Finally, I was directed to one Mr. Thyagaraj, Manager - Admin. This person has tried to convince me to retain the membership.
(I had to explain all the details to this person to make him understand the issues I faced with CClub. That essentially means that there is no communication channel within CClub. I had to repeat my case each and every time there was a change in the point of contact.)

It’s been more than a month now, since I’m in touch with this person. Absolutely no use. Each time I call him, he wants to convince me to retain the membership.

Because he knows that Microsoft reimburses membership fees, he is interested in getting contacts from me. Imagine, I’ve spent atleast 1000 bucks on phone calls, 1000 bucks in serving legal notice, above all 5 months of frustration and this person expects me to refer people. That’s how CClub is !!! They take things lightly. Nobody is bothered once you become a member.

I can simply get a re-imbursement from Microsoft and keep quiet. But, should I really do that? I’ve an answer to this Qn.

The infrastructure is a blackmark in itself. Imagine, you find there is no water in Swimming Pool and nobody damn cares. You go the customer care and they will make sure your frustration level multiplies and you stop using their facilities. Hence, more people can be accomodated :)

3. Please don’t believe in any of their claims. Infact, if you talk to two different salesmen from CClub you can notice that what one person said is quite different from what the other says. They are not sure of the facilities they offer. Please make sure you visit the place yourself incase you want to go for CClub membership

4. Don’t give any amount to any person from CClub before you get to see the membership card (atleast the.temporary one)

Till date I don’t have a membership to myself. It’s close to 5 months and I don’t have a single letter of communication from them. Not a single letter of acknowledgement!

Forget about the letters mentioned above, my lawyer didn’t even get a reply to the legal notice served. We received only an acknowledgement from the postal dept! They couldn’t really stop their competitors from doing their job :)

Actually, we were three people in Bangalore who paid the amount for membership. None of us have received anything. So, it’s not that I’m the only one at the receiving end. Infact, my Lawyer’s point that CClub has 100s of pending cases in various Consumer Courts says it all.

If you want to experience filing a case in Consumer court, fighting it out, experience how a Consumer Court works, I would strongly recommend you get in touch with a CClub salesman now!

If any of your friends are considering membership with CClub, please tell them the points I mentioned above (in bold)

-Natarajan

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