When my wife and I traveled on Amtrak this week, our room on the train could not be secured against theft. The latch on the door was broken and when we returned from the dining car we found our room was open to anyone passing by. Subsequently we discovered several items missing from our room, including prescription medications and our return trip tickets for the train. We orally reported the loss to Amtrak by phone and were told that the loss was 'our responsibility', despite the fact that the loss was clearly due to defective Amtrak equipment.
We were then told that we had to buy new tickets and that Amtrak would assume no responsibility for the problems we had to deal with because of Amtrak's poor maintenance of its equipment.
The loss of the prescription meds was a serious and expensive problem for us.
I cannot see how Amtrak's requirement that the victims of a crime (theft, in this case) on board Amtrak to assume financial responsibility for their own losses is ethical, particularly when the loss was due to a failure on Amtrak's part to maintain its own equipment in proper working order.
Amtrak representatives contacted by phone declined to provide an address or fax number to contact Amtrak corporate HQ. We had to look that information up on usacomplaints.com, since Amtrak's website does not have this information readily available.
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