- This topic has 10 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 4 months ago by
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HA month ago, RedBus ran a campaign stating that if I traveled 4 times with a specific bus partner within a set period, I would unlock a free ticket. Since I had multiple trips planned, I booked my tickets and successfully unlocked the offer.
Now, when I try to redeem it, the app still asks me to pay extra. After contacting customer service, they said the ticket isn’t actually free but instead comes with a 7600 discount which was never mentioned in the campaign. When I questioned them about it, they claimed it was in the terms and conditions, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.
What’s frustrating is that their entire campaign revolved around getting a “free ticket”, but in reality, it was never free. There were no mentions of extra charges anywhere in the promotional material, making this feel like a deliberately misleading marketing tactic.
Has anyone else faced this? Any advice on hou escalate this further?
Screenshots- https://imgur.com/a/TZiEQBC
TLDR:
RedBus ran a “free ticket” campaign, but it’s actually just a 7600 discount with extra charges not mentioned anywhere. Feels like a bait and switch any advice on escalating this? -
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WI travel a lot so I’ve used the “free ticket” on several occasions. What I’ve noticed is that yes it’s not absolutely free. The free ticket usually ends up being a discount equal to the amount paid for the 4th ticket. So if I got the 4th ticket cheap, my discount for the next (free) ticket is also going to be a low amount.
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WOh that doesn’t seem right. It implies 599 is the max discount regardless of how much you pay. I wanted to check if I’ve ever got a discount more than 599 but it doesn’t show the free ticket history anywhere. It is in fact misleading the customers unless they have some tiny line somewhere in their T&C
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UWithout knowing how the advertisement of “free” was presented, I might take a guess that mention of “free” was reasonably inferred to be as such that your next ticket will be truly free. One might need to have some screenshots of how the advertisement appeared to gauge correctly.
Nevertheless, this does seem like a case of unfair trade practice under CPA 2019, 2(47)(3)(a) along with service deficiency, and the CCPA guidelines on advertisement of 2022, section 7(a), which says this about “free claims advertisement”
>not describe any goods, product or service to be ‘free’, ‘without charge’ or use such other terms if the consumer has to pay anything other than the unavoidable cost of responding to such advertisement and collecting or paying for the delivery of such item
This is because you mentioned you had to pay something extra to avail the “free” ticket. Ref: [https://consumeraffairs.nic.in/sites/default/files/CCPA_Notification.pdf](https://consumeraffairs.nic.in/sites/default/files/CCPA_Notification.pdf)
Please check the same guidelines, section 4 on what constitutes the “Conditions for non-misleading and valid advertisement”.
You can file a case against them in consumer court in your district via e-daakhil. Do note, you can also approach NCH and file a grievance but it is not a court and it is not a consumer complaint.
If you grievance is not resolved, inevitably you would have to approach consumer court. For your case, court fee will be nil, if you are appearing on your own. If engaging a lawyer, they will charge their fees.
You would have to fight it out, doesnt matter if “free” seems meaningless, as a consumer you have full right not to be mislead.
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