Dear Mr. Buchanan,
Re: Jetstar Refund prevented by Australian Financial Legislation
I have purchased many tickets from Jetstar and usually paid for the purchase by credit card.
However, recently Jetstar has chosen to impose what I believe is an unfair 10% surcharge on any customer who chooses to pay for their booking using a non-Jetstar branded credit card and as a consequence of this, I decided to select the direct deposit option.
I made the booking on Wed 2nd Feb and paid by direct deposit.
On Sat 5th Feb, I had not received the itinerary and on checking the booking, I found that it was still awaiting payment.
On investigation I discovered that I had made an error when making the direct deposit, I had entered additional information into the description field, other than the booking reference number, i.e. R4FLVI – Michael Buble.
It was my guess that the description field containing the booking reference no. is used by Jetstar's booking system to match the booking with the payment and as a result of the additional information which I added after the booking reference no., this match was unable to be completed.
After realising that I had made an error, I called Jetstar to find out how I could get the problem resolved, as I did not want to lose the booking.
The first person I dealt with was named Ravi, I am not sure which country Ravi was in, but he told me I should fax through a copy of the bank transaction to (03) 9349 5116 and that somebody would call me to confirm that the payment for the booking would proceed.
As I had not received a phone call, I called Jetstar in the afternoon and spoke to another person who told me that there was nothing that Jetstar could do and that I would have to talk to my financial institution and check if the transaction had bounced.
On Sun 6th Feb, I called Jetstar and spoke to another person who told me once again to fax the transaction through, for which I replied that I would lose the booking if something was not done about the problem immediately. I requested to speak to a supervisor who allowed me to pay for the booking via my credit card and waived the surcharge. My booking was now confirmed and paid for and all I had to do now was get my direct deposit of $472 refunded.
On Mon 7th Feb, I contacted my financial institution who confirmed that as the BSB No., 063 000 and account no. 10955200 were correct, the $472 had left my account and would have been received by Jetstar.
I called Jetstar and talked to Sarah in Malaysia who told us to fax through a copy of the transaction to 0011 603 79602022. We attempted to do this but we got a message indicating that the call could not be completed. Of course, we were unable to contact Sarah to find out what to do next.
We called Jetstar again and this time we got Ralph, location unknown, who told us to fax the transaction to (03) 8330 3872 and that we would need to call again in 3-5 business days to find out if the fax had been received.
As I needed to pass on some more information in relation to our account, I called Jetstar in the evening and spoke to Niki in the Phillipines who took my account details and told me I would have to wait up to 3 weeks before I would get the refund.
As you can understand, I did not feel at all confident that I would get my money back after having spoken to so many people in 3 or more different countries who requested information to be faxed to 3 different numbers.
I asked Niki if it was possible to speak to someone in Australia, as I am an Australian customer and my money would have gone into the Jetstar account in an Australian bank. I was informed that this would not be possible.
On Feb 7th, I wrote a letter to Jetstar at their corporate headquarters in Melbourne.
I received a generic email response from Jetstar Customer Care on 17th February which advised me that I would have to allow at least 15 days for a response from a Customer Care analyst.
After 20 days I still had not heard from anyone at Jetstar so I decided to request the status of the case.
I called the 131 538 number as directed in the email I had received and quoted the case ID - CAS-450517-50PGD9, to which I received the response that they could not help me and that I should call (03) 9092 6402.
On calling this number I was connected with a lady based in Australia who said that she would be able to confirm that the refund had been instigated on Friday 18th February.
I confirmed the financial institution details with her and she convinced me that the refund would now proceed without a hitch. I was told that if the refund did not get to my account that I would need to call back a few days later.
On Wednesday, 23nd February, I called (03) 9092 6402 to inform someone that I still had not received the refund. I received a recorded message indicating that the number had changed and I now had to call 1300 042 394.
On calling 1300 042 394 I was informed that I should call 131 538, but they would help me this one time. I verified the account information with the analyst and was told that the refund had gone to a different account no. 048811 and a different BSB no. 802-800.
I reiterated that the account no. and BSB no. were incorrect and I was told that someone from the finance team would contact me within 48 hours.
Later that night I called 131 538 and spoke to another person who told me a completely different story telling me that the refund had definitely been sent to the correct account no. and BSB No. but when I requested to speak to a supervisor to attempt to rectify the problem, I was ignored and the call was terminated.
A second call many hours later informed me once again that the refund had been sent to a different account and that I would have to chase it up with my bank.
After Google (ing) the BSB no. 802-800, I discovered that this belonged to an intermediary banking platform that looked after my credit union.
I contacted CUSCAL and attempted to find out what was going on but was told that they would not speak to the public and that I would have to contact my financial institution, Big Sky Credit Union.
On talking to Big Sky, I discovered that the no. 048811 was in fact the account no. for Big Sky at CUSCAL and it was explained that the reason I did not receive the refund was because Australian Financial legislation stipulated that if a credit was older than 3 days it had to be rejected.
In other words, the time it takes Jetstar to process refunds means that customers will never receive their money unless they continue to pursue what appears to be an extremely time consuming and stressful process dealing with many call centre analysts in many different countries.
I suspect that many clients of Jetstar have reached this point and given up what feels like a pointless exercise to obtain a refund.
I have spoken to my financial institution to attempt to get someone to get the legislation changed to allow clients of big corporations obtain refunds, but it appears to me that unless a whole bunch of people in the industry get together and act, this issue will continue to cause issues with customers.
It is no wonder that the words 'jetstar complaints' through GOOGLE brings up so many examples of customers who have had frustrating issues with your airline.
I am hoping that you may be able to investigate this issue and get the right people to change the legislation to allow large corporations, such as Jetstar, to make refunds with no time constraints rather than expect the impossible and get companies to refund within the legislation time frame.
The benefit to Jetstar would be less complaints from customers and thanks from other corporations who have similar policies for refunds.
I remember vividly a comment from a Jetstar representative who stated that Jetstar was a budget airline and so what did I expect when it came to customer service.
At the time of writing this letter I still have not received a refund...
If you are interested in pursuing this issue, please do not hesitate to call me.
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