Pune: Zomato Gold members seek refund, take to social media

PUNE: Customers who had paid for the annual memberships of Zomato Gold have been tweeting to the online food aggregator for a refund.
Customers are fuming over the sudden denial of Zomato Gold deals in 450 restaurants in the city, especially because they had already paid for their memberships.

On Zomato’s website, the cost of an annual Zomato Gold membership is Rs1,800.
Zomato hasn’t yet removed the partner restaurants (that have now logged out of the partnership) from its app.
One customer tweeted, “I’m currently at Raasta Cafe NIBM road, Pune and zomato app shows that they are your zomato gold partner but the owner says they're protesting against zomato so zomato gold won't work, I have subscribed to zomato gold and paid an amount but it's of no use.”
Abhilash Gangane, a working professional, said, “I had purchased the Zomato Gold membership for Rs1,300 for a year. It is Zomato’s responsibility to provide the service to us. If restaurants are not accepting Zomato Gold, then it is a direct loss for customers. I have asked Zomato to refund my membership money, but they are not responding.”
Dhrupad Roychowdhury, a city-based event executive told TOI he recently renewed his annual Zomato Gold membership through a promo at Rs450. “It’s a loss for customers now. I understand the restaurants’ perspective too, as Zomato had initially said only a limited number of customers could become members of Zomato Gold,” he said.
Working professional Pooja Yadav recently renewed her annual Zomato Gold membership for Rs1,099. “My money has gone waste. I don’t know when this issue between Zomato and restaurants would be resolved. Zomato should return the membership fee to customers,” Yadav said.
Ganesh Shetty, the president of Pune Restaurants and Hoteliers Association, said, “All the earlier Zomato Gold restaurant partners in Pune have now signed out. We are facing issues with customers coming to us and showing us their memberships, but we are telling them we are no longer partners. We have also sent an e-mail to Zomato to delete our names from the app.”
When TOI contacted Zomato they said they won’t be able to comment on the matter.