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Bye Bye American Airlines, Bye: A scathing blog complaint.

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Blogger for Huffington Post, Mary Adkins, writes a scathing post that should have some heads rolling at AA. This is an all too common occurrence from employees that are overworked, underpaid, and all too bitter about the situation. (www.huffingtonpost.com) Mais...

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canuck44
canuck44 5
Lesson Number One...never use a debit card, only a credit card. Lesson number two, if the refund in not timely given, report the transaction as "fraud" and let American sort it out with the credit card company (that has clout). Lesson Number Three, know that AA will be sliding to the abysmal "service" of US Air and book alternative flights on a carrier that cares.
PhotoFinish
PhotoFinish 5
Should've been handled properly by the FIRST customer service rep alerted to the airline's mistake.

Should not have taken a week, nor a month, nor three and countless reps, supervisors and managers. Only very stupid organizations take their customers for granted by:
1) making such a mistake: unexpectedly spending a valued customer's money (in their own checking account) WITHOUT PERMISSION
2) then fail to FIX the mistake immediately after first notification by said valued customer
3) this issue should have been handled by the very first airline representative to be alerted to the egregious mistake, without need for repeated communications FROM the valued customer.
4) The airline should have a workflow process in place, to insure that such issues do not drag on, and are completely resolved in that first day of notification, or worst case, the next day.

Some people need to be fired. Some new managers and trainers need to bring a better way of resolving valid customer complaints quickly and effectively.

Mistakes happen.

But they should be opportunities to create rabid customer loyalty from valued passengers. These should not lead to drawn out and draining customer service experiences that push away valued passengers.

A passenger placed her trust in AA, by choosing to fly them. AA violated that trust by taking money from her checking account by mistake and without permission.

The customer continued to trust AA to fix the mistake. AA violated that trust by not fixing the mistake immediately, by dragging the problem out 3 months, and by wasting the customer's time and good will by repeatedly failing to fix the problem.

If AA is worth at least a bucket if warm spit, they'll spend quite a lot of time and effort figuring out how screwed up are their systems, procedures and policies to allow any protracted incident like this to happen to any passenger (who has entrusted their carriage on the airline), let alone a passenger who has chosen to give their loyalty to the airline (and done so repeatedly).

This news is the worst indictment of an airline. That they do not care about their passengers.
dax9876
dax9876 3
"Ejected" by someone in the first 3 minutes. It took me more than 3 minutes to read the article. I have been noticing that "Bad-Pub" squawks have been getting ejected rather quickly, especially for AA.

My guess is AA has a little team trolling this site. I wish FA would come up with a solution to this annoying problem.
dax9876
dax9876 2
No matter how the customer(CORRECT in assuming that the airline should handle this properly) decided to handle this, AA messed up, failed to fix it, failed to admit it, and is now having the story sent out to thousands of readers. Crappy service from an airline that does not need this sort of headline.

In my opinion, the customer did right by the company, trying to let them fix their mistake, rather than going to the bank. AA completely failed on their end. Why the heck would you fault the consumer for thinking a billion dollar company would do right by the consumer and refund the $350 that was improperly charged?
JerrySteinberg
Jerry Steinberg 1
If you don't notify the credit card company of an error or incorrect charge, you don't preserve your rights so the customer may have been being nice to the airline but it was to her own detriment. I give companies in such cases two attempts to fix a problem before issuing a chargeback. Sometimes the desire to clear the chargeback is the impetus the company needs to fix the problem, however. Sometimes it's never fixed at the merchant but at least the credit/charge card holder is made whole.
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
Did anybody really expect airlines to get better as they get bigger thru consolidation? Their first line of service is employees (including management) and if they are not happy the customer will not be either.
PhotoFinish
PhotoFinish 2
Which is exactly why I expect the smaller airlines, that provide both better customer service and usually better prices too, to grow at faster rates than the larger consolidated behemoths. The smarter ones will make an effort to relearn that youthful spirit of great customer service, that may have been lost through the years and the mergers.
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
You got it!
dax9876
dax9876 1
I'm curious as to who you think the smaller airlines are? Southwest (like 'em)? Jet Blue (love 'em when I can use them)? Spirit (we all know this to be the worst of the worst)?
preacher1
preacher1 5
You got to remember that Southwest started with just 2-3 planes and the biggest end of their growth over the years has been a concentration on customer service and treating people halfway decent.
PhotoFinish
PhotoFinish 2
I mean specifically airlines like virgin America, JetBlue, Alaska, and even Southwest.

Though I will additionally point out that ULCCs like spirit are consistently profitable, and continue to grow. Also expect the new ULCC Frontier to have similar success.

The US market has much less LCC and ULCC traffic, as compared to other regions. I fully expect that will change. Consolidation may end up speeding up the process.
preacher1
preacher1 1
Leaves me wondering if she ever got her money back.
PhotoFinish
PhotoFinish 1
I believe the stolen money was returned, but only after 3 months, many calls and emails, the week before the customer was supposed to fly on the flight in question that was both debited from miles, then also charged to her checking account.
WithnailANDi
WithnailANDi 0
Things AA did wrong:

1. Not providing good customer service

Things the customer did wrong:

1. Not immediately filing a fraudulent charge complaint with her credit card company.

2. Not staying on the phone the first time until the problem was handled. She accepted "no" for an answer, and that's the wrong answer.

3. Shopping (?!?!?) while on the phone, instead of making the call while she had all her concentration on what she was doing.

4. Expecting someone else to care more about fixing a problem that involved her money than she does. Never happens.
preacher1
preacher1 1
The part that gets me is the shopping at Target. I detest people that run Bluetooth or whatever and walk around yapping into thin air. I give not one Tinker's Damn about who they are talking to and at that point, the invade my personal space. Hell of a note to be standing there trying to make a decision on what to buy, and have to listen to somebody argue with an airline.
canuck44
canuck44 1
Ya...but its OK at Walmart cuz in Arkansas these phone things are new and there are lots of sights in that store to be sending to yur cuzin on the phone....LOL
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 2
Watch out John! Perhaps you should leave the coast and trip to inland Florida. The crackers are much the same as us rednecks. We just kill different varmits for dinner. Lol
canuck44
canuck44 1
Careful now...that is a substantial portion of my patient population. They are totally fun. The kids show up in summer wearing cowboy boots and shorts. If they don't say "Sir" with the answer to every question, they are immediately disciplined. They are all two parent families and more than make up for lack of teeth with the caring they show for their kids. Basically they are my kind of people...and after 25 years here, I am now operating on kids whose parents I cared for as infants. They contribute greatly to the reasons I am still working as I would miss them if I didn't.
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
Crackers and rednecks "rule"! Texans ain't the only ones got their own way of doing things.
preacher1
preacher1 1
Get'im Jimbo. Cuzin can come look for itself. LOL
JerrySteinberg
Jerry Steinberg -5
The author of the article is at fault for not managing the problem correctly. The only way to deal with an incorrect charge is to notify your credit card company. It's standard procedure and protects the consumer. While errors do happen, the problem mentioned in this piece is no reason to leave an airline.
canuck44
canuck44 1
Problem is that people use debit cards...much harder to negotiate....see below.
preacher1
preacher1 1
My controller used to do that almost routinely with AMEX. Come up with the proof or don't pay it. No big deal.
OnTheHorizon
Tony Smith 0
It's become endemic in the US for look for someone to blame when things don't go one's way. But people's fragile, childlike (even when they're chronologically more than 30) egos can't handle these modern times.

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