I am writing this letter as I would like to think that there is a way to make businesses accounted for their actions especially when they conduct themselves in a totally unprofessional and unethical manner.
On April 25th I was researching the internet travel section for my daughter as she was trying to find a reasonable fare to South Africa. My daughter's Father had told her by phone that if she could pay for a ticket to South Africa he would be happy to pay for her expenses once there and that he was also taking vacation over May and if she could come then they could go on a trip together. My daughter had not seen her Father for over 5 years so she was really keen to go and have this time to spend with him. My daughter is a private Chef and she needed to make alternative arrangements for her clients to take the time off, which she did. All that was needed was to find a reasonable fare to South Africa.
I found a fare on VIPFares an internet travel broker. I booked the ticket for my daughter and I was sent a confirmation Air Booking Request Successfully Submitted. I called the phone number and was again told the booking was confirmed and a second email was sent to me stating that Your Reservation has been successfully completed. (See attached). Due to the time restraints I asked if I would receive e-ticketing and this to was confirmed. I called the actual airline that the ticket was drawn on and confirmed with them that e-ticketing was accepted and I reserved the necessary seats on the airline for my daughter at the same time.
The day before the flight my daughter called the airline to again confirm the flight and her seating, all was on schedule and again my daughter's flight was confirmed. On the morning of the flight I called the airline at 10 A.M. To ask about the baggage, if the baggage goes all the way to Cape Town the final destination or if my daughter had to collect her bags when ever she changed planes. When I gave the airline the information about her flight I was only then told that the booking had been cancelled. The airline could not tell me why, but they did confirm that the seat for the flight was still available and that they would be willing to keep the seat for me, but I would need to buy the ticket directly from them at over three times the price of the original ticket. The airline representative had no idea why the booking had been cancelled by VipFares, she said the cancellation had only happened within the half hour of my calling.
I called VipFares and spent the next 3 hours been given a total run around. It was impossible to find someone willing to deal with me, a manager or anyone who could explain to me why the booking had been cancelled. I was told there wasn't time to issue a paper ticket, but I had already gone through that with another of VipFares representatives when I first made the booking and at that time I was told an e-ticket would be fine. I was then told the airline would not accept an e-ticket so I again called the airline and was again told they had no problem with e-ticketing. I again called VipFares and again I faced a totally uninterested, unhelpful group of representatives. No one was willing to tell the truth or take any responsibility for the situation. I was disconnected, put on hold, shunted from person to person, told all managers were at lunch, there was no customer service at all, not one person that was willing to really listen let alone help. I was told at one point I needed to deal with Sales, well Sales also disconnected me, put me on hold and I eventually realized that all sales would do is sell me a totally new ticket and expect payment right there and then for that ticket even though I had already paid for a ticket and VipFares still had my funds. VipFares is a company that operates in a totally unprofessional and unethical manner and I was not going to get any help or answers and I was certainly not going to get the ticket I had bought in good faith from them honored.
Mistakes happen, but most professionals when they realize a mistake has been made, do their utmost to remedy that mistake and ensure that they honor the transaction they negotiated to fulfill, especially if they have accepted full payment in advance. When I bought the ticket I not only received an email stating that my air booking request was successful, but the full payment, the total amount due for the ticket was taken out of my bank account. As far as I am concerned if a company accepts payment they then have an obligation to honor that business transaction. At the very least they should find a way to make good on their original commitment. VipFares offered no solution at all and I even had one representative tell me that I had been sent an email telling me the ticket was cancelled. An outright lie as I have a log of my emails and no email was sent to me and anyway the ticket was only canceled with the airline that morning, in fact the cancellation had only happened within the half hour of me calling VipFares for an explanation. I also think that even if VipFares planned to send me an email canceling the ticket I do not think that sending that email only hours before the actual flight is an acceptable business practice.
I don't know what VipFares policy is in regard to vacation, but in the real working world most people need to make substantial arrangements when arranging vacation. I am also sure that a lot of people, like my daughter, only have the money they paid for their ticket, how would they be able to go ahead with their vacation when the company they bought their tickets from has their funds. They would have no choice but to wait till those funds were returned. They would be totally stuck, their vacation ruined, as my daughter would have been if I had not come to her rescue. Thank goodness I am in a financial position to help and I was able to buy my daughter another ticket so she could leave as planned on her vacation. I also have to wonder if I had not made that call in the morning to the airline if VipFares would have had the courtesy to let us know that the ticket had been cancelled. We would have gone to the airport and only then found out that there was no ticket.
I am totally appalled by VipFares idea of how one does business, I am even more appalled by the attitude I encountered in trying to find a solution and the fact that VipFares was not willing in any way at all to help, fix or find any sort of a solution. No one has tried to contact me to explain, to offer any information as to what happened and why the ball was dropped. I have to presume that VipFares does not care about customer satisfaction or about how they conduct business. It is really sad that companies like this are the reasons that people are wary of doing business through the Internet. I would like to think that VipFares and any company conducting business in such an unethical way, that these unprofessional companies are held accountable, even closed, but certainly stopped from doing business that causes people such considerable heartache. A vacation is that special time that most people work hard all year for and it is so wrong that a company is allowed to totally ruin that special time. Shame on them!
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