Beware of this Fraudulent and cheating company Club Jiva . Just run away from it as soon as you hear that name "Club Jiva"
Hi friends.
I want to share my yet another experience with club Jiva and its ridiculous, irresponsible and rude behavior. I insist never fall pray for any membership or so called services from Club Jiva or any other organization associated with Club Jiva.
I took membership of this holiday package around 2014 in Goa. Those guys chase us around Goa beaches wasting our valuable time and trap us with their untruthful promises and services of their holiday package. I am one of the victims for the same.
I never had a satisfiable booking experience nor a stay experience till date. Unfortunately I have renewed my membership in 2022 with 30000 INR, on promise that they will carry over my balance nights and extend the 2 years COVID period along with 2 additional years and also said this is the best renewal option upgrading the membership to Privilege(their definition of privilege membership is better service - i.e., quick response to our booking requests or any other queries) which means their regular membership they themselves define the service or respond is not appropriate. And also promised to give some gift vouchers and smart watch as renewal gift.
I say again, this is an unfortunate decision as the temptation was there that they will respond better in future and their services might improve better that too after COVID tourism development.
Now after this I got the vouchers of food(KFC, McD, Pizza Hut, Myntra etc), clothing etc which are simply useless. Not used even one of them.
And smartwatch is not delivered, I have followed up on this for more than 15 times via email or msg till mid of 2023.(hold on to this point).
Last year in June I wanted to book a hotel in Goa or Kerala, with 1 week advance dates - the next day they responded saying no hotels are available in both location. I immediately asked for any other possible location. They simply said some hotels are available towards last week of June or first week of July. Which is 3 weeks after our planned dates.
I asked which hotels were available in those last week dates. No proper response. They never give straight input to us which will help in concluding and proper planning of our travel. After too many mail conversations for more than a week which is useless I dropped the travel plan as those dates were clashing with my other personal commitments.
When we try to call, nobody will respond and when we mail them to call back for quick resolution nobody calls back.
Then comes our great Oct experience - This time I approached them 10 days in advance for reservation. After 2 days they respond that no rooms are available at that location for given dates. I asked for other available location options, after 4 more days they came back with a location with 2000 INR per night additional charges. And after 3 more days of continuous follow up, almost like begging them for hotel bookings options in other location, they came back on 12th Oct; My first mail went to them on 4th of Oct with Manali option. If there is any delay in response from their side they say it's some technical issues.! Funny isn't it?
If not mail, they can call but they won't. In between there will be multiple diversions and arguements from their team wasting our time and efforts they simply don't care of respect to customer or the services asked for.
Now, they booked the hotel for 3 nights in Manali instead of 5 or 6 nights that I asked for, was even Ok with switching of hotels in between if needed.
They said rooms are not available. One help they did is to book along with breakfast after multiple requests ofcourse as we were travelling with kid.
Here comes the surprising part, when we checked into the hotel, the room was absolutely average - we were ok with that, no other choice there.
BUT the whole hotel was empty as they said its off season and all the rooms were vacant since more than couple of weeks and the next weeks as well and our Club Jiva friend said no rooms were available when we asked for 5/6 days stay.
Because of which we have to squeeze our vacation and book our flight tickets accordingly - remember they confirmed this booking just 4 days before the check-in date - you can imagine the flight costs 4 days before.! And when we asked why they said that the rooms are not available when the whole hotel is empty for so many weeks time, they give some silly reasons that they booked it via a partner. Now how does it help a customer? It would have been easy that we can book ourselves, better hotels for better price for the required number of days, isn't it?
Now lets do the calculations. I enquired personally the hotel charges per night. They said its 1200 INR per night on those specific nights which we stayed. I paid 30K for 3 years renewal and Annual Maintenance Charges they levy is 9500 INR per year. Which comes to 19500 per year(10000 yearly renewal+ 9500 AMC). And they give 7 nights per year now if we calculate on this it comes to 2785 INR per night and the kind of hotels and standards they offer is as I mentioned, 1200 INR per night. And in my previous booking pre covid, I either paid additional utility charges most of the time which is 1000-1500 INR per night or have paid additional amount to hotel directly for better room options as I was travelling along with my kid all the time.
So with respect to cost benefit as well it's worst. We won't have good option to select the right hotel at right location for the right dates and for the right amount of time or Money.
The icing on the cake is the ridiculous behavior of their sales or booking teams. They jump onto argument all the time. I always wonder who is the customer and who is trying to control whom and on whose terms.! They never respond on time, they never take our schedule into consideration nor respect the views of the customer.
All I realized is - just because we are paying them the amount in advance, they play with us. Nothing less. We are just trapped.
Now when this year started, In the month of Jan, all of a sudden I got a mail saying my account will be blocked if I don't pay AMC charges for within 5 days time if not they will levy 18% interest on AMC charges and block my membership for 6 months. Please note the way they treat a customer because it's the customer who is loosing the money. This kind of enthusiasm won't be there for any reservation booking or any responses.
Now I raised the point about my smart watch promise which they made in Dec 2022 which is about 1.2 years. They were silent again for few days days.
After 4 days they replied back saying that will dispatch the watch and asking for AMC payment again. I just replied do the despatch first.
To my surprise they have dispatched the FireBoltt smartwatch with a twist.
It was not working, not even switching on; And the charger wire is not the right one either. They said they opened the box and tested it before dispatching.! Does anyone really open any electronic device before dispatching to customer.?
When I informed them about the condition along with video of unboxing they asked to return. It's waste of return charges for me.! Again after 2 weeks I followed up on status and also asked for refund of my renewal fee as I had enough of this nuisance. They responded back soon saying membership is non-refundable :) And asked me to check on membership terms and conditions.
I tried to argue that the Terms and Conditions is applicable to the membership payment and I have not got any written or signed anything like this during my renewal process. To this they say new and old membership are not different it's the same rules.
I do not get their logic nor the legal aspect as I have signed a document of Terms and Conditions on membership document and payment,
I think these rules CANNOT be by default for every payment made afterwards. It's definitely not written that way in the Terms and Conditions document atleast.
I am not legal expert though.
After 2 more weeks time they have dispatched the smartwatch which is in working condition. It's not in usage till now atleast. But seems in working condition.
Once I confirm on that, immediately I get the mail asking for payment of AMC the same day or they will permanently close my membership.
I Asked for 1 week time to decide if I need to go for this payment or not and assess if it makes sense to continue with this kind of membership or not.
They responded very soon that no such option and close the payment within the same day 5 PM.
I just replied go ahead with that.! As I realized it's waste of talking to them further wasting to assess such unprofessional organization just looting hard earned money and giving stupid services and additional headache in the name of Holiday package.
Here I have lost 30000 INR renewal fee, 50000 INR for membership fee and lost peace of mind every time I try for any reservation booking or talking to them for any information, service or clarification. Just for your information I have more than 45+ nights left out as balance valid till 2027.
Not that I have availed everything from Club Jiva and just raising complaint on them. It's a total loss in all ways. Beware of such pathetic organizations.
And when I told them to cancel my membership and asked them NOT to treat customers like this taking their money, their response was
"Thanks for your Advice"
You can understand their attitude and satirical nature in serving their customers by taking the money affront.
Never fall in prey with such disgusting and unprofessional, rude companies. They are just there to loot you in the name of Holiday packages and booking. They would never respond properly and professionally for any reservation bookings or any other query but when they ask for payments they are just over enthusiastic and never give time, chasing people like anything with quick satires and arguments.
This is my overall experience with Club Jiva. A great one. Beware of this. Run away from this if you hear this name.
I am sharing this experience to enable people on such kind of fraud and disgusting companies around and avoid any temptations thinking about having good vacation time with family when needed. The reality is totally opposite and pain taking with such companies.
