Feb 25, 2016 04:57 PM
17475 Views
I cancelled an air ticket in October 2015. However the bank account that I used for booking was closed by that time. Hence, Yatra refunded the amount to my old bank account. I started to inquire about getting the refund in a different account number on 1st November 2015.
The customer representative asked me to send them an authorization letter from my bank(she did not know what should be the content of the letter). Luckily both the old account number and the newly created account number were from the same bank. I asked my bank to give an authorization letter which they did and I mailed Yatra guys. After around 1 month(December 2015) when I called Yatra, they said the content of the authorization letter was wrong.
They said that the authorization letter must notify the RRN number of the transaction(Yatra refund to my old account). I went to the bank, asked my branch manager to talk to the Yatra representative. Finally I got another authorization letter where it was mentioned that the refund amount was received from Yatra's bank and sent back to them since the bank account did not exist any more.(Bank is unaware of any RRN no. Bank requires UTR no for any online financial transactions which Yatra does not know). I called Yatra immediately and they said that the letter holds good and I'll get my refund in my new account in a week.
After 1 month(January 2016) when I contacted Yatra again they said that my bank was telling a lie and that Yatra did not receive the refund amount back from my bank. At this point I was furious and mailed them that I'm going to court where my bank and Yatra can discuss whose fault was it. At this they responded within a week and mentioned that they are processing the refund.
Finally I received the refund amount on my new bank account by the end of February 2016.
Statistics:-
Total time to receive refund: 3 and half months
Phone balance spent for calling up Yatra customer desk(I called them a million times): Rs. 1200(approx)
End Result: Success at last but on the cost of losing patience.
Advice:-
When going for a refund please check if the bank account is still active. If its not active then inform the customer desk that you want a refund in a different bank account and ask them the procedure.
Do a follow up with them every week and most importantly ask them to connect the call to a supervisor.(In my case, every time I called the agent would say that my refund is in process. But the supervisor told me that the authorization letter was wrong). Don't believe the agent ever; they are always in a hurry to end the call.
Keep a track of all the emails that you sent. If they do not have a proper response they keep repeating the same information.(After waiting for a month, Yatra gave me the details of the refund to my old account which I already knew and was neither useful to me or my bank)
Keep calm and drink lots of water(you can also watch a movie) when conversing to Yatra guys because in an entire call of 2 hours duration you would converse with a human for 10 minutes max; rest of the time you would be on hold.
Make sure your phone has lot of balance and a huge amount of battery charge.
Moral: Want to deal with Yatra? Make sure you have lots of patience and enough phone balance.
