The downside of UPI Payment System: Example of Oyorooms.{Case Resolved}
I have been writing on UPI eco-system for a long time. Today, I am going to write the downside of the UPI eco-system and where I faced the problem.
10 Oct 2018
on 10th Oct 2018, I booked OyoRoom hotel and made payment via BHIM UPI option. OYO room app development team has done a poor job in coding and integration the UPI. instead of integrating the “upi request money” (Option1) flow, they have used the “in-app deep-linking of upi requests”. (Option2).
Because, they went with Option2, which is SUPER BAD WAY to integrate the UPI Payment systems, my payment was not captured.
Let me show some screenshots.
This is the screenshot of my ICICI online statement
You can see, there are 2 entries for Rs 705. the first payment was done using UPI at the time of booking.
At the Hotel reception, I was told to pay Rs 705 because their system was showing Payment Status PENDING. I explained and situation and shown my ICICI SMS.
So they told me that I can check-in but I need to pay at the time of checkout if OyoRooms payment status is still PENDING.
At the time of checkout of 13 Oct 2018, I was forced by the reception to pay the money by card.
During my 1 day stay, I called OYO Customer CARE at least 5 times. they were not helpful at all.
every time, I called customer care, they say, Money has not received in our account and we cannot help you.
In this transaction, there were 5 parties were involved.
ICICI, BHIM, RazorPay, HDFC, OYO-Rooms.
I am using BHIM which is linked with ICICI, OyOrooms use RazorPay which probably use API from HDFC Bank.
For me, it is very frustrating that whom to contact and my time is also valuable. with UPI it again looks like Sarkari system again where one reference to another.
OyoRooms told me to contact RazorPay
Dear OyoRooms, I don’t care the poorly developed system you have designed. All I care, that MY MONEY has been deducted while doing the online transaction on your mobile app.
You should be responsible for reverting me back.
Conclusion
I have not received my money back yet. Its been 10 days now. I simply don’t understand that UPI technology is well designed but still it has a fault where payment got stuck and everyone points to another.
UPDATE 1 — 26 OCT 2018
I have contacted ICICI bank too. This is the email which they gave me.
UPDATE 2 — 29 OCT 2018
OYO Room Customer care GAVE me a screenshot of some internal tools where it shows that Money GOT refunded TO SOME ACCOUNT (??) on 17 OCT. I checked all my bank details again and TOLD that I have not received any payment of 705 rupees between those dates.
UPDATE 3 — 29 OCT 2018
I contacted BHIM UPI help email. contact.bhim@npci.org.in
UPDATE — 30 OCT 2018
Finally, I have received the amount today, BUT
BIG QUESTIONS NOW.
It took almost 20 days of efforts to bring the money back into my account. I made these efforts deliberately to show few things
- Everybody was blaming each other on where was the money. I don’t know how all these systems designed in such a way that Money can be LOST in between and nobody has a clue about it.
- I got my money back only when I made this long post about OYO rooms and they investigated. Before this BLOG post, customer case was saying only one statement that — “We have not received money”. After this blog post, I got multiple calls from OYO and they were investigating the case.
- I got immediate REFUND when I contacted BHIM UPI helpline with all the email and proof.
- I want to BLAME — OYO, BHIM, RazorPay all three in entities for causing me this inconvenience.
and THIS kind of case is a reminder to INDIAN PAYMENT INDUSTRY to create software and helpline.
