I had a hellish day last Friday. I was looking for a ticket for a conference to State College in PA. I looked at several internet companies offers and compared prices. A priceline.com ad popup and I check them out. I read their instructions and selected the city, time and made an offer that I believed reasonable.
When I got the confirmation that my offer was accepted I noticed they sent me to Philadelphia, hundreds of miles away from my destination. I sent e-mails, called the company and getting just their automatic answering service. I called the company and they told me they cannot do anything about that but they give me a different number to call priceline.
This number works but the "real" person I talk with is not very different from the automatic service. She sounds like a robot telling me in automatic, repetitive fashion the same thing over and over again. I ask to speak to supervisor and she was very animated screaming that this was my mistake and they not repsonsible and so on.
In the meanwhile I check the net (hotwire, cheaptickets etc.) and compare the price of tickets to Philadelphia and these are hundred of dollars less than what priceline charged me.
Finally after a long debate they tell me that just for this time (right because I will NEVER do business with them again) they will allow me to change my destination. I go on line change my destination and they cannot find any deal at my original offer. They tell me that if I'm available to leave from NY or to pay 150 dollars more they have a ticket for me. If I don't accept then priceline will not refund my first ticket. I don't have any choices so I approve the 150 $ difference.
I thought that this was it. I was unhappy but at least I had my ticket and look forward to my trip. After 30 minutes I do some internet banking and I notice that my account (I had used a debit card to buy the ticket with priceline) was charged twice by those scammers. One time for the first ticket that I didn't want and the second time for the more expensive ticket. This was crazy, I had payments to go through that account and they were messing up everything!
I called priceline back and they started again telling me this was their procedure, that they were going to refund my first ticket (excluding a serice charge) and the refund will appear on my account in 7-10 business days etc, etc. I explained this was a debit card that they were charging me for something I didn't want and they didn't sell me anyway and so on.
It was like talking to a wall. I told them I was going to put a stop on my payment and they replied they didn't care. They were blaming me and attacking me in any possible way. Now I don't care what the stupid legalistic jargon, river of words entire page filled of rules say. I could not find anything in normal people (and I have a 140 IQ) language that says I'm going to be charged twice if they allow me to change a reservation (for a mistake they did in the first place). This is crazy! And if there was such rule, hidden in their scam-artistic legal language it will be fraud anyway. This company is a big scam and their customer service should be called customer arrassment! Capital Kirk should stop to be involved with them!!
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