Lady doctor booked a ticket to nowhere

Her travel agent sold her tickets for Air India flight, then cancelled them and pocketed the amount

Lady doctor booked a ticket to nowhere

Her travel agent sold her tickets for Air India flight, then cancelled them and pocketed the amount

If you are planning a holiday and thinking of buying tickets from an unknown agent, be warned. Check your tickets properly before you set off because chances are you might have been taken for a ride as a certain Dr Meera realised recently.u00a0

Dr Meera's travel plans went haywire because of a fraud travel agent
who duped her representative pic

Dr Meera, working as Medical Officer at Timarpur Dispensary under the Government of Delhi, came to Delhi from Kerala one year back. You can blame it on her ignorance of the ways of the city that might have helped her 'agent' take her for a ride.

PLANNING A TRIP: The incident came to light when Meera lodged a complaint of fraud and cheating in a local police station. Meera, a resident of Mayur Vihar area of east Delhi, decided to go on a vacation to her hometown Kerala. She called JUST DIAL for the contact details number of Air India office.

"Just Dial gave me Air India's contact numbers, but they also passed my number to several travel agencies without my permission. Since then, several travel agencies started calling me saying they got my number from Just Dial," said Meera.u00a0u00a0Sumit from Luxor Travels at Nehru Place was one of the callers. He offered Air India tickets to Meera at Rs 34, 000 which was lesser than the market price. And when Meera said it would be difficult for her to travel all the way to the agency to get the tickets, Sumit said he would book tickets on his own and she could pay him when he delivered the tickets and bill to her house.u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0

The phony agent
"Sumit came to our house on April 10 and handed over the Air India e-tickets with a proper PNR number and travel agency bill. We were supposed to fly from Delhi to Trivandrum for May 21 and return to Delhi on June 15. In order to convince us that the tickets were not fake, he logged on to "Check My Trip" website by keying in the PNR number. We paid him the amount with the service tax. When we asked himu00a0 for a detailed statement needed for LTC claim, he said he would mail it within an hour. He didn't do that. We tried to contact him but his number was out of range. Then I contacted Just Dial, who had given my number to Luxor agency but they claimed Luxor travels was not registered with them," Meera said.

She rushed to the Air India office and was shocked to find out that though the tickets were booked on April 10, but was cancelled on the same day after Sumit took the money from me. I realized I have been cheated," said Meera.

The other side
When Mid-Day contacted Just Dial, they said, "In such cases, our CSE (Customer Service Executive) speaks with the affected caller and arranges for a con-call with the concerned client to resolve the issue. In case the client is found to be a cheat/phony or is involved in any illegal activity, then we immediately freeze the contract and blacklist the same. Thereafter, the listing will not appear on our records. However, in this particular case, the said listing (Luxor Travels) and the number was not listed with us. We also have a 'Report Abuse' tab that appears on each result page on our website. A user can thus immediately inform us of any fraudulent cases and we take prompt action on the same. Besides this we have over 2 million reviews and ratings listed which help users balance the veracity of the Vendor's claims effectively".