How many of us have heard the recorded toneless voice: “Dear customer, due to the Corona virus and shortage of manpower we regret we cannot accept any phone calls regarding your inquiry on refund matters. Please press 1 to continue. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Corona has found its most unexpected victim … the refund category.

With business and leisure travel plans cancelled and hotels partially closed, airlines, train, cruise and travel agencies have gone crazy handling the humongous volume of requests for cancellation reimbursement once the government ordered it.

Online travel agencies (OTA) and brick and mortar agencies have red flagged refunds as a hurdle and sought immediate government aid.

An an example, an estimated £7 billion was spent by Britons on holidays booked pre Corona that will no longer take place. These holidaymakers are demanding a full reimbursement and are entitled to it.

The second major category of refunds are weddings and private events, trade and corporate shows, sports matches and glitzy calendar season tickets…all of which stand cancelled or postponed. 

Take the thousands of big fat Indian weddings booked for the year that have been cancelled and you can understand how event managers and venue platforms are struggling to find ways to recompense the parties.

Thats not all.

The steep drop in disposable income in business and family finances have led to mass cancellation of various orders.

From the urgent to the mundane, the most common refrain is can you cancel and refund the booking?
So the list progresses…airline, travel, hotel, event and entertainment, gym and club membership, season ticket, all the way to app upgrade pay back to shopping voucher compensation, cancellation of edu upgrade fees, to premium status rebates.

We are in a world where everyone is turning their figurative back to a known universe of constant consumerism.

Banks are registering a staggering amount of queries on refund status on cancelled orders of services no longer required/possible to deliver or fulfill.

School, college and tution reimbursement are another important category affecting every other family. When universities and schools are closed what happens to fees gathered? What about schools which had charged annual fee increases to reluctant parents and were asked to rollback the fee hikes and were flooded with irate calls: where’s my refund?

Consumer outrage at delay in processing and honouring refund requests has found expression on social media. Virtual credit shells and virtual wallets are not acceptable and cash transfer to bank accounts is a loud demand.

Finally, refund rights and class action suits are coming up and legal eagles are getting ready for the battle which asks ‘Are refunds legal in a Covid pandemic?’

It’s not only COVID monitors and Corona metres that are at odds with each other, so too Covid19 prediction models that go awry with senseless regularity.

Add the much touted curveball vaccines that are in Trial 2, 3 or 4 stages globally and get alternatively hyped or paused globally or get show cause notices for not following changing protocols, much to everyone’s befuddlement.

Nobody can tell if a vaccine will come into play in mid 2021 or 2022 or if it will ever be found as the virus mutates in different regions.

Probably individual or herd immunity will happen simultaneously and even that is a mute question.

We even have a fresh theory that masks are a form of crude vaccine as it exposes the wearer to just enough of the virus.

Plasma therapy doesn’t reduce mortality versus plasma therapy banks for recovery?

So much for the disease itself.

I’m equally bemused by Covid reports, surveys and studies released as newspaper headlines that get refuted almost the next day by a public that says one thing and does the other with random ease.

So LocalCircles in its survey report says that 69 % Indians are not travelling in the upcoming festive season in October- November and next day a newspaper report headlines that domestic airlines fly high in September as demand soars.

Flying straight in the face of a Knight Frank report indicating that the corporate real estate (CRE) cost is around 4.3% of the operating income and that an astounding 90% of the WFH surveyed employees ( many in IT) missed their offices, comes a refuting KPMG report that says that India Inc will keep WFH as a standard practice for the intermediate future.

I admit that Covid is another word for the unpredictable, but with so much distortion of what is, what can be and what should…your guess is as good and as valid as any big time market report, popular blog or national newspaper headline.