IMPORTANT: My bank account was debited, but booking did not go through (locked)

We’ve had quite a few customers who pay through netbanking complaining about their bank accounts being charged and tickets not being issued. Although it’s not a very common occurence (no need to get alarmed if you pay via Netbanking!), but the few times it does happen, it leads to a bad user experience.

It’s not specific to Cleartrip – it can happen on any other website. These kinds of errors are inherent to how Netbanking payments work. In this post we’ll try to explain why and how this happens.

In simple terms this is how a netbanking payment works:

1. Customer selects the bank and hits the “Pay” button on Cleartrip’s website
2. Cleartrip redirects the customer to bank’s website
3. Customer authorizes the payment at the bank’s website
4. Bank redirects the customer to Cleartrip’s website
5. Cleartrip verifies the payment and makes the booking
6. Cleartrip displays confirmation page

For your ticket to be issued step# 4 is essential. Even though you’ve authorized the payment (and your account has been debited), if step# 4 fails, our system will not come to know that you’ve made the payment. If you have not made the payment we will not issue the ticket. (Yes, you have made the payment, but our system does not know about it.)

Step# 4 fails due to various reasons – the biggest being slow or unstable internet connections. For example, after you’ve authorized the payment, your internet connection breaks and you’re stuck with a blank screen on your web browser. (The sad part is, that most bank systems will not execute step# 4 again, if you hit the “Refresh” button on your browser. If they did, everything would just work normally.)

Payments without a corresponding ticket are automatically refunded the next day using a backend reconciliation process which we have with the banks. So, no need to worry about your money not being returned – we will automatically refund it the next day.

We hate it when this happens, but we really can’t do much about it. We, however, will surely refund your money the next day.