My apologies for taking so long to find this wonderful website forum and having read some of these horror stories, I do not fell so alone in my anger and frustrations against this "almighty corporate giant QANTARSE!!!" My experience goes back to July 05, when I bought tickets for return travel to the UK from Canberra for myself, ex-partner and 3 year old daughter. I bought the tickets from an online classifieds website to the value of $4500. At the time of the transaction, I logged onto the qantas website and went through my itinary from the booking number provided, which showed all the details to be correct and payment had been successful with an E-ticket number & receipt number attached. I called Qantas 2 days later to organise our seating and meals arrangment. During this conversation, the representive informed me that there had been duplicate bookings made for our flights, but not to worry as she would correct them. I told her that the booking had been made online and not directly through Qantas and she again re-asured me that everything was now in order. I was booked to fly in 2 weeks time. When we arrived at the airport check-in on the day of our flight, I was asked to produce the credit card that had been used to pay for the tickets! It turns out that I had been caught in a scam and Qantas knew about it from the moment I had first contacted them! They had chosen to let me believe that everything was in order in the hope of "catching" me at the airport as being the potential instigator of the scam instead of showing any compassion when it was apparant that I was indeed the victim! No mattter how hard I remonstrated with them at check-in, they would not allow us to fly without forking out a further $8000! We had to return home and I was left to console my little daughter to try to explain to her that she would not be meeting any of her reletives for the first time who lived in England. During the following couple of weeks, I had the mis-fortune of trying to deal with the moronic customer relations staff at Qantas who I would simply describe as "Pigs". To try to keep the details as brief as possible, I ended up fighting my case at the fair trading tribunal, where I initially had success when it was ruled that Qantas had been neglient in the duties and would be liable not for the cost of the tickets but for my loss of earnings (being self-employed), pain and suffering etc. However, on the second appearance at the tribunal where I was up against their lawyer, the lying booking clerk and one of their customer relations officers, the new registrar had decided even before the case had started that she was not going to rule against Qantas! The affidavit provided by the booking clerk was a total fabrication put together by the qantas legal team and she was there to stumble her way through it. She at one stage looked like she was going to collapse, such was the state of distress she was in, until the lawyer interrupted the procedings to give her a glass of water and time to compose herself. I asked her "why did you tell me that had fixed up the booking and we were all set to go?" She replied "I did not say that, I told you I was not sure if you were right to go"!!! I told her that if you had said that to me, do you not think that I would have been calling qantas every 5 minutes of the day until I got a positve answer from them, rather than just turn up at the airport 2 weeks down the track ready to fly?, She just shrugged her pathetic shoulders! I was then advised that my only course of action was to take the case to the supreme court which would cost upwards of $30, 000 to try to recover my $4500. Has anybody else had a similar experience to this nightmare and can anything more been done to make qantas accountable for such deception? Even though 4 years have passed since this injustice, If somebody knew of any recourse of action that could be embarked upon, I would proceed with vigour!
0 comments