Quite stressed about this situation - has anyone else gone through this? any tips you can give us to help make sure they do actually give us a refund?
Dear Mr Hall,
I am writing to you to hopefully sort out a matter that appears to be beyond the capabilities of those who I have talked to previously from your company.
On December 17th I made a deposit into Jetstars account to pay for a flight from Melbourne to Wellington on 11th June 2013 - a few weeks later on checking my itineraries I discovered that this flight was not on my bookings list - I checked my bank account and the money had definitely been deposited - I phoned your call center (a difficult phone call) who advised me that they would take my bank account details and talk with their finance department and get this sorted out for me - great!After not hearing from them I made another arduous phone call to your call center - again they told me that it was getting sorted by the finance department and that I would hear back in 4 days. I waited five days and on not hearing anything I again called your call center - to find out that noone had contacted the finance department and what I needed to do was to fill a form out on your website and wait 2 weeks for a response. I did this - providing my statement proving the money had gone out, I also made a complaint on facebook - as social media appears to unfortunately be the only way companies take complaints and requests seriously. Lo and behold within an hour I had a response - that they would look into my case and sort it out - wonderful- I wait another week - and make a polite request as to an ETA of some form of information regarding my case - the response I got was that they were sorting it out with the finance department (a worrying statement I have heard before). Today, 11 days after making a comment on facebook, I received an email from one of your staff informing me that the finance department had finally got back to them about my case and had informed them I did indeed deposit $517 into your account for the flights - {excerpt from the email I received today} but as I "entered 'Jetstar Melb - Wlgn H9N22G' as your transaction reference. As this wasn't just your booking reference, our automated system isn't wasn't able to recognise your description as your booking and such your funds have been returned to you and the flights removed from your booking."I understand that by inserting the Jetstar wellington - melb in the other slots for direct deposit information I somehow messed up the automated system that Jetstar has (not quite sure how - as I put only the booking reference in the reference slot so surely your automated system should be able to read that reference?) - along with this information they also told me that when they cancelled the flight they also promptly returned my money on the 27th of December. They didn't.
I have sent them another copy of my statement proving this, the thing is - how long am I going to have to wait for them to investigate this further?
My partner and I are flying to India in 3 weeks - a few of those flights with your company - I realize that you may not even have time for this email , but as the CEO of Jetstar Australia and NZ I am asking you to please sort this out and restore some faith into your company, It is a stressful situation, I feel that this is being purposefully prolonged so that we just give up - how else are we to supposed to understand this misrepresentation of information - it would be great if we could get this matter sorted out and give us both confidence to fly with Jetstar. We have only ever had one issue with your company before and that was when we were making our way to India last year - we had flights to Christchurch with Jetstar - 4 weeks before departure my partner suffered major abdominal trauma and had his spleen torn - in his subsequent weeks in hospital we got all the information requested by Airasia and Jetstar - Airasia refunded our money straight away - even asking after my partners wellbeing, but Jetstar stated we hadnt given enough information - more had to be provided, after many phone calls we ended up giving up -it was $100 and my partners recovery took precedent. This however we will not let slip by, I applaud the ability of Jetstar to offer such reasonable flight prices - but why does that mean they get to strongarm the customer who is willing to give them service -despite previous failure.
If there is anything you can do to assist in this matter it would be greatly appreciated.
Kind Regards
Katie
Comments
Hi Katie I totally agree with
Hi Katie
I totally agree with Amir Taefi. In my own painful experience Airline Customer Advocate is the only way to get these arseholes to talk to you. Don't waste any more time and don't be so polite in your letters -- Shitstar doesn't deserve it. They continue to take the piss out of their customers. Best of luck and don't fly Shitstar ever again!
Michael
Hi Katie, Unfortunately you
Hi Katie,
Unfortunately you are experiencing the normal run around that Jetstar gives the majority of it’s customers. You are correct is assuming they hope you will simply give up and allow them to keep the money.
From my experiences, the basic premise to follow when dealing with Jetstar is to understand that any statements or promises given by the call centre staff concerning refunds, bank transfers etc are intended only to get you off the phone as quickly as possible but have no relationship to any action they intend to take. Indeed, as you have discovered, in the majority of cases the call centre staff will do nothing further once the call has terminated. When you call back several weeks later you will end up with a different person and the cycle of intentional misinformation starts again.
The root cause of this issue is that the call centre staff have no actual power to do or promise anything. All decisions regarding refunds are made by the Melbourne office. The call centre staff simply tag the case as a “refund request” , and put into a queue for Melbourne to process.
When Melbourne eventually get to it, they tick the “reject” box and nothing further happens. No email advising the refund you were promised is not coming (even though Jetstar has your email address), no phone call, no snail mail .... nothing. They have your money and you can get stuffed.
When you call back you will be assured it’s being worked on and just to wait a bit longer. Perhaps you will be told it’s being “fast tracked” .. this is a favourite Jetstar call centre staff expression. It sounds promising but means absolutely nothing. Welcome to Jetstars standard operating practice.
Reading previous comments on this site indicates your case scenario of having paid the funds but Jetstar’s booking system not successfully associating the payment with specific a booking,resulting in automatic cancellation of the booking and non-return of funds is quite common. You are not alone.
In my case, also concerning a refund, I eventually got it only after I lodged a case with the CTTT. I suggest you do the same. Expecting a reasonable and moral response from Jetstar is complete waste of time. You need to initiate legal action to compel them.
Katie. Good luck my dear. I
Katie. Good luck my dear. I hope you get a positive outcome although I don't hold much hope. They will drag it on until you give up. Try Airline Customer Advocate www.airlinecustomeradvocate.com.au . Worth a try. The lady there is helpful but her hands are tied. She might be able to get you a quicker answer. The alternative is take the scums to the Civil Administrative Tribunal (Small Claims Court) in your State. Doesn't cost much but time consuming. See my insert here (wish me luck) http://www.dontflyjetstar.com/complaints/wish-me-luck for what options are available.
Hey everyone, Thank you so
Hey everyone,
Thank you so much for responding, and thank you to those who have put the time and effort into giving as much information to help those of us who have been royally screwed by Jetstar.
After emailing Mr Hall - I got a surprisingly prompt email back - 20 mins later - saying he would get someone to look into our case.
The same woman who had previously sent me emails saying we had already received our refund then began emailing further - she was from the Australian branch - she informed me that she would sort this out with her finance department, how sorry she was about the whole situation and that she would "fast track" our case..a trigger word that often comes up in the complaints on this site. She was friendly - but ambiguous "if we can sort this out we will....might be able to get the refund....etc.." I ended up requesting no ambiguities - I told her to tell me that we definitely were going to get our money back - to her credit she did - and after 8 days after the letter to the CEO and a few more phone calls and emails we finally did get our refund back tonight.
It was their fault - they admitted it. but to be honest without that email to the CEO and the continuing persistance daily for updates and answers I doubt we would have got very far - we spoke to a friend who is a barrister who let us know she would get on their case if we needed and believe me it was getting to that point luckily it didn't get that far, but wow, Jetstar, the words blood and stone come to mind.
So again, thank you for your responses, and to all others who are experiencing troubles with jetstar - my advice, dont give up, dont let them get away with it..persist, persist, persist.
Well done Katie. That is good
Well done Katie. That is good new. Stay tuned now to my small claims court hearing against Jetstar on the 28 march. Hopefully I have a similar positive result. I will update my post (wish me luck) then. Well done again.
I to am having problems with
I to am having problems with jetstar saying I haven;t paid for my fare yet i have a receipt for it They have cancelled my fare saying they don;t have the money but my bank has told me it has gone into their account.
i will fight them tooth and nail until they respond as they really do treat you like shit.
Cheers everyone
Cheryl