Cheating/Fraud done by Thomas Cook, Raipur ( Chhattisgarh) and duped 3 passengers of money and their self respect. Beware & don’t let them dupe you too. Read Below :
Sub : - ‘Cancellation’ of tour and ‘Deportation’ of all 3 passengers from ‘Hong-Kong’ by Immigration because of mismatched documents filed by Thomas Cook India
Passenger 1 : Vineet Agarwala ( Age 32) Adult
Passenger 2 : Nayantara Agarwal ( Age 28) Adult
Passenger 3 : Vansh Agarwala ( Age 06) Child
Our experience with Thomas Cook began when we booked their tour called 'Extravagant Hong Kong' for total of 3 people ( 2adult + 1 child) for travel date 11.05.2017. The required formalities were completed from our end by 30.01.2017 including full-final payment of Rs. 2, 48, 000/- ( Rupees Two Lac Forty Eight Thousand Only) and documentations. All passports and documents were provided to Thomas Cook representative 'Mrinal, Raipur ( Chhattisgarh) as and when required by him in ‘Original’ and ‘Xerox’.
All travel related documents i.e. Pre Arrival Visa ( for Hong Kong) , Air Tickets, Travel Insurance etc. were filled/prepared by Thomas Cook.
The trip booked with them was to start from 12.05.2017 from Mumbai ( 1.20AM) . All vital documents like Flight Tickets ( Mumbai to Hong Kong) , Pre Arrival Visa ( Hong-Kong) , Tour Itinerary, Travel Insurance were provided to us 1 day prior to departure i.e. 11.05.2017. The same was informed to their agent at-least 25-30 times, an email was also written, but every time they were like we are working on it or we are giving it to you shortly.
However we had trust in their company’s Brand Name and went ahead with the trip after receiving all documents from their office on 11.05.2017 at 2PM.
On arrival at Hong Kong on 12.05.2017 at ( 9.40AM Local time HK) , the Immigration Department found some irregularities with our Pre Arrival Visa’s and held all 3 of us in their custody/office for questioning. After waiting for 4 hours we were informed by them that the Pre Arrival Visa has been filled incorrectly by Thomas Cook representatives. The place of ‘Issue of Passport’ had been filled as “Raipur” whereas it should have been “Kolkata”. We were also informed by them that their system showed that the Thomas Cook representatives knew about the irregularities in the Visa Application as they had tried to amend the same online 10-12 times but was unsuccessful in doing so. Instead of informing us about the mistake and stopping us from travelling to Hong Kong, they simply emailed all the documents on the last minute to conceal the facts. The same was reciprocated by the immigration officer to ‘Red Apple Travel, Honk Kong ( Local travel handler in Honk Kong for Thomas Cook) very strongly. Red Apple Travel was also informed that the 3 Travelers were subject to a fraud/cheating by Thomas Cook India.
Because of this, we had to spend more than 12 hours in the immigration office like criminals, we were not given access to our luggage, food, phone call were not allowed and were kept in extremely cold environment without any rest/sleep. Our phone, cash and personal belongings were taken from us and we were kept in a confined room. I and my wife could barely cope up with this situation moreover we had our 6 year old son with us who was feeling miserable because of all this. Our movements were restricted to sitting on a chair and going to the washroom. During all this we were not provided any food or water and my son had not eaten for over 10 hours.
We were put on a return flight the same day at 7.40PM ( Local time HK) and were escorted by 4 Uniformed HK Immigrations Officers right up to our seats with all the passengers looking. At least 10-15 passengers enquired as to why we were being escorted by Officers. Our passports were handed over to the Jet Airways Crew. On arriving in India ( Mumbai) we and our passports were handed over to the immigrations officer. We had to spend further 4 more hours in Indian Immigrations to clarify all the details to them, give them written statements as to what had happened and finally we were allowed to leave at 5AM on 13.05.2017 in the middle of the night with a kid. We had to book a hotel and arrange for travels from Mumbai to Raipur at 5AM. This entire incident left us in a shocking state of mind and in utter trauma, I my wife and my 6 year old son suffered for more than 30 hours because of the mistakes made by Thomas Cook representatives intentionally.
We were looking forward for this trip since last 6 months and paid the entire trip cost to Thomas Cook at 1 go and this is the kind of service we received. It was my 1st horrifying experience in life to be thrown out of a country like this amidst so many people looking. At that point I had lost my self-respect and had failed as a father in-front of my son, who only wanted to have a good time. All he ever spoke for these 4-5 months was that he wanted to see Disneyland and I had failed him.
Please never book your travels with them. A local travel agent sitting in a 2x2 Sq. Ft. office does a much better job than Thomas Cook and these guys call themselves a multinational company.
