One of India’s most-funded and widely celebrated tech startups has for long been at the receiving end of customer grievances about poor and faulty services. Now things may have gone too far.
On October 14, a 15-year-old boy died after getting electrocuted at an OYO Rooms hotel in South East Delhi. The boy, who was visiting Delhi from Dehradun, in neighbouring Uttarakhand, to participate in a shooting competition, was reportedly bathing when his roommate heard a shout. When the hotel staff entered the bathroom from the ventilation window, they found him lying unconscious.
This incident, one’s own terrible personal experience, and grievances of other customers made public on OYO’s social channels and other platforms, indicate a long history of accommodations that don’t match the company’s rosy financial portrait.
OYO did not respond to a detailed questionnaire from Quartz about how it ensures quality and safety at its property.
Substandard services
It was in October 2014 that I tried OYO Rooms for the first time – and swore to do so never again.
We were a group of four, including two German friends who had come to holiday in Southern India. For one of them, it was the first time in India and I wanted to make sure he would remember the trip fondly. I made an OYO booking in Wayanad, Kerala, weeks before the trip and even called the property to make sure everything went smoothly.
In the photos, the hotel appeared to be a three-star accommodation. In reality, it was somebody’s house that had been lying vacant for years and had been opened just the day before our arrival. The two rooms in the house we were given had walls so damp that every few minutes, through the night, the plaster would chip off from one corner or the other.
My embarrassment aside, the accommodation was so uncomfortable we decided to cut our three-night trip short and return to Bengaluru the next morning itself.
Then, OYO was still a year-old and we all gave it the benefit of doubt. Yet, all these years later, not much seems to have changed.
On September 14, stand-up comedian Garv Malik shared on Twitter his experience of staying at an OYO Townhouse in Kolkata, with a video of huge rats running around his room.
While the comic made light of the situation, the episode highlighted a serious health and safety hazard. Besides, this wasn’t the only incident involving rodents reported at an OYO property.
Earlier this month, Mohamed Najiullah, a senior consultant at software consultancy firm ThoughtWorks, created a portal called “oyo-ruined-my-anniversary.com” to share the story of how he and his family got stuck on a remote island in Andaman with poor mobile network connectivity as the hotel staff refused to acknowledge a booking made through OYO.
“Soon after I landed in Chennai, I came home and called up OYO. I explained all of this to the executive and he put me on hold in order to transfer me to a manager. Someone then answered and I went ballistic. I told him all the pain I had experienced because of OYO and how OYO ruined my wedding anniversary.
After listening to me for 10 minutes, the person then responded saying “What can I do?” I couldn’t believe my ears that this person was being so callous about such a big issue. I told him to address my issue and that was when the person told me, “Sir, I’m also a customer. I called regarding a complaint myself.”
OYO had connected me to another customer.