$$ Issues with RCI.

[JVilleGal]

I'm so sorry, I just can't believe this has gone on a whole extra week and they are no closer to fixing it. I'm sure the "other" reservation has sailed already.

 

But this WILL get fixed and yes RCCL owes you a rather sizable CUSTOMER SERVICE GESTURE for the poor manner they have responded once you notified them of what appears to be Fraud.

 

Wine is your friend, this will get fixed. So drink lots, pack and try have a good weekend. ;)

 

 

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[918baker]

I'm so sorry, I just can't believe this has gone on a whole extra week and they are no closer to fixing it. I'm sure the "other" reservation has sailed already.

 

But this WILL get fixed and yes RCCL owes you a rather sizable CUSTOMER SERVICE GESTURE for the poor manner they have responded once you notified them of what appears to be Fraud.

 

Wine is your friend, this will get fixed. So drink lots, pack and try have a good weekend. ;)

 

 

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My husband is BESIDE himself over this. Hopefully we'll know early next week who actually submitted the charges for our card so we know who we're filing a police report on.

 

Still shocked at the incredible lack of information the exec CS rep could give us. Even the random CS rep could look up transactions with our credit card number. Exec CS rep said she had to send it off to accounting and couldn't look anything up on her own.

 

Glass #3 of wine. Off to go enjoy a movie with my boys :D

[A Pisces]

My husband is BESIDE himself over this. Hopefully we'll know early next week who actually submitted the charges for our card so we know who we're filing a police report on.

 

Still shocked at the incredible lack of information the exec CS rep could give us. Even the random CS rep could look up transactions with our credit card number. Exec CS rep said she had to send it off to accounting and couldn't look anything up on her own.

 

Glass #3 of wine. Off to go enjoy a movie with my boys :D

This is just so unbelievable! I am just too nieve I guess, but I can't believe a TA would still your money like that!

I think the exec CSR, could see what is going on, but didn't want to say anything without checking with higher ups.

 

Happy Birthday! This will get resolved, don't let it spoil your day!

[peach section]

I'm just in tears. This is too much. My 30th birthday is in two days. Trying not to let this ruin the weekend.

 

 

Don't let your bad apple TA take away your birthday joy.

 

May I suggest that you contact investigative reporters in Houston and ask them to look into it? Houston Channel 2 recently did an expose on fake travel agencies. Perhaps before you do this, you should call the Galveston Police Department and file suit. And also ensure that this TA cannot touch your reservation again.

 

Here is the link to the story:

http://www.click2houston.com/consumer/thousands-lost-to-fake-travel-agencies

 

Best of luck to you. I surely hope that you get the money due you from the TA. That is a large amount of money!

Edited February 18, 2017 by peach section

[BNBR]

My husband is BESIDE himself over this. Hopefully we'll know early next week who actually submitted the charges for our card so we know who we're filing a police report on.

 

Still shocked at the incredible lack of information the exec CS rep could give us. Even the random CS rep could look up transactions with our credit card number. Exec CS rep said she had to send it off to accounting and couldn't look anything up on her own.

 

Glass #3 of wine. Off to go enjoy a movie with my boys :D

 

 

And... what did the dispute resolution department at your bank say?

 

5 customer service agents, you are in tears.... did you even call your bank?

[918baker]

And... what did the dispute resolution department at your bank say?

 

5 customer service agents, you are in tears.... did you even call your bank?

 

 

Yes, I did. Forgot to update about that. They still say 60 days. It's a local credit union. Will look into contacting Visa itself.

[JVilleGal]

If your Travel Agent has employees it is possible (unlikely) that an employee has done this but being MIA and refusing to return RCCL calls is a bad sign.

 

 

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[JVilleGal]

Read this regarding Visa Dispute rules and how there are several different rules depending on circumstances.

 

Good read and I'm thinking your CU may be wrong.

 

 

I believe you meet the exceptions which is either when you find out it's not applied to your acct (that's today) or from when services are to be delivered (your cruise sailing). Visa sets these rules and your Credit Union simply has a Branded VISA but they must still operate under the VISA rules and not their own.

 

Read carefully!

 

 

https://chargeback.com/visa-chargeback-time-limits/

 

These are the rules your Credit Union must operate under to process your dispute. Basically same info as the link above but in Bank Legal Language so find your type of " Fraud No Card Present"

 

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/chargeback-management-guidelines-for-visa-merchants.pdf

 

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Edited February 18, 2017 by JVilleGal

[lbjen]

I'm sorry that someone in Houston did this to you. We're not all bad!

[A Pisces]

Yes, I did. Forgot to update about that. They still say 60 days. It's a local credit union. Will look into contacting Visa itself.

Also, contact the "big agency" that your ta works with. I think you said a while back, that she has a parent company, even though she works on her own, from her home. They have insurance for when things go wrong, and her charging your credit card, for someone elses reservation, is definitely wrong.

It should show on your reservation, who the actual agency is.

 

I don't know that you will be able to dispute the final payment, since now you know the fraud occured in September, when she charged someone elses cruise. You may have to get your money from ta and her parent company.

Relax - you will get your money back - either through RC or through your credit card. Try to calm down and have a wonderful birthday week-end. This problem will still be there next week but there's nothing you can do now. The executive office knows about it so they won't let it be cancelled. Just try to relax and enjoy your birthday !

[coolbluegreenseas]

@918Baker - As per the Fair Credit Billing Act, you have 60 days to dispute a charge on a credit card. Here is how the 60 days are calculated:

 

"For example, if an unauthorized charge was made on February 15 and your statement was mailed on March 1, you have until April 30 to dispute the charge in writing."

 

https://www.thebalance.com/what-to-do-about-unauthorized-credit-card-charges-960260

 

The chargeback document linked in an earlier post is in reference to a merchant's responsibility, not the amount of time you have to dispute a charge. Think of it this way: the credit card holder is the disputer of the charge and the merchant deals with the result of that dispute or better known as the chargeback. The dispute and the chargeback are related, but not the same.

 

Although most of the commenters on this thread continue to insist you will recover your $1,400, it might be a good idea to consider this money could be lost. Here is why:

 

September 2016 - $1,400 charge appears on credit card that is unauthorized.

November 2016 - Time limit to dispute $1,400 charge expires.

December 2016 - Final payment to RCCL charged to credit card and this payment is authorized.

 

It is the September 2016 charge that is unauthorized, not the December payment and disputing a portion of the December payment may not fly because it was authorized in the first place. The best thing you can do now is to call your bank, explain fully why you want to dispute the September charge (the 60 days are a guideline and the bank can decide to lengthen the time frame) or to completely explain why you are disputing only a portion of the December charge. Your bank is probably the best bet you have to getting your money back.

 

It is possible RCCL might do something for you, but it is not promising when agreed upon phone calls are missed and the earliest any information will be available to you is February 22nd. RCCL may feel no responsibility concerning this fiasco and will eventually tell you there is nothing they can do. After that, you can hit up social media, local news stations and so on, but there are no guarantees there, either. I hope RCCL does do something for you, but do not depend upon them to come through.

 

You can take your TA to court, but that will probably run you more than what you will recover. Also, if your TA is associated with a larger organization, start making the phone calls to them.

 

If you get stuck with the $1,400 bill, try to be philosophical about it. I know it sucks, I know it is wrong, but the lesson here would be never allow anyone to automatically charge your card ever again and to never hesitate on a credit card dispute. Credit card companies are in your corner during a timely dispute and if you had disputed in the 60 day period, you would have won. Again, I hope like Hades this all works out for you, but just prepare yourself for it to not go your way.

 

Good luck.

Edited February 18, 2017 by coolbluegreenseas

[parrotfeathers]

A TA has posted on this thread. I wonder if she would answer the phone for one of them? Not that anyone else would want to get involved. But it seems as if she would have to answer the phone for someone! There was a thread a few years ago I think on HAL where someone almost lost a ton of money because of a dishonest TA. I "think" she had no cruise at all--the TA had taken all the money.

[JVilleGal]

A TA has posted on this thread. I wonder if she would answer the phone for one of them? Not that anyone else would want to get involved. But it seems as if she would have to answer the phone for someone! There was a thread a few years ago I think on HAL where someone almost lost a ton of money because of a dishonest TA. I "think" she had no cruise at all--the TA had taken all the money.

 

 

I remember 2 yrs ago I think it was a church group.

 

 

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[JVilleGal]

@918Baker - As per the Fair Credit Billing Act, you have 60 days to dispute a charge on a credit card. Here is how the 60 days are calculated:

 

"For example, if an unauthorized charge was made on February 15 and your statement was mailed on March 1, you have until April 30 to dispute the charge in writing."

 

https://www.thebalance.com/what-to-do-about-unauthorized-credit-card-charges-960260

 

The chargeback document linked in an earlier post is in reference to a merchant's responsibility, not the amount of time you have to dispute a charge. Think of it this way: the credit card holder is the disputer of the charge and the merchant deals with the result of that dispute or better known as the chargeback. The dispute and the chargeback are related, but not the same.

 

Although most of the commenters on this thread continue to insist you will recover your $1,400, it might be a good idea to consider this money could be lost. Here is why:

 

September 2016 - $1,400 charge appears on credit card that is unauthorized.

November 2016 - Time limit to dispute $1,400 charge expires.

December 2016 - Final payment to RCCL charged to credit card and this payment is authorized.

 

It is the September 2016 charge that is unauthorized, not the December payment and disputing a portion of the December payment may not fly because it was authorized in the first place. The best thing you can do now is to call your bank, explain fully why you want to dispute the September charge (the 60 days are a guideline and the bank can decide to lengthen the time frame) or to completely explain why you are disputing only a portion of the December charge. Your bank is probably the best bet you have to getting your money back.

 

It is possible RCCL might do something for you, but it is not promising when agreed upon phone calls are missed and the earliest any information will be available to you is February 22nd. RCCL may feel no responsibility concerning this fiasco and will eventually tell you there is nothing they can do. After that, you can hit up social media, local news stations and so on, but there are no guarantees there, either. I hope RCCL does do something for you, but do not depend upon them to come through.

 

You can take your TA to court, but that will probably run you more than what you will recover. Also, if your TA is associated with a larger organization, start making the phone calls to them.

 

If you get stuck with the $1,400 bill, try to be philosophical about it. I know it sucks, I know it is wrong, but the lesson here would be never allow anyone to automatically charge your card ever again and to never hesitate on a credit card dispute. Credit card companies are in your corner during a timely dispute and if you had disputed in the 60 day period, you would have won. Again, I hope like Hades this all works out for you, but just prepare yourself for it to not go your way.

 

Good luck.

 

 

Aren't you Mr Doom & Gloom! The minute they file a police report in the city this woman lives in she will likely write a check to stay out of jail and the news papers. I would think (not a lawyer) that anything $1000 or more is a felony. The other issue of course as this TA's house of cards is falling, "how many more victims are there".

 

I do believe that 918baker did not know until yesterday the Sept charge was fraud. She still thought it was an over charge & computer glitch. I'm betting based on what I posted earlier (yes the bank instructions for processing) there is leeway for interpretation given the particular circumstances.

 

Yes she absolutely could lose her $ and that's a bummer but there are likely avenues to be saved, RCCL because they allowed a third party's CC to be used to pay for a cruise of someone with a different last name. The TA herself to stop from getting to do a perp walk in handcuffs and/or the TA's insurance.

Small claims court will be an avenue of course.

 

No point in ruining 918baker's birthday weekend. She has a lovely cruise coming up and I feel this will be made right if for no other reason than that RCCL received each of those pmts and I would bet the buck stops with them. They were overpaid and they "misapplied" the payment and that's the story I'm sticking to!

 

Final Note: this credit card needs to be replaced as it appears fraud has been committed with it. OP has 2 weeks and that's enough time to get a new card sent to her before this TA or someone else has a field day with her card while they are out of the country.

 

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Edited February 18, 2017 by JVilleGal

[nancronin]

JVilleGal - I agree with your last post and feel that it will turn out okay in the end - just a real struggle for her to get to that point!

[Big_G]

Yes, I did. Forgot to update about that. They still say 60 days. It's a local credit union. Will look into contacting Visa itself.

 

Our dispute over CC charges with Royal took more than a week once it got to the President's office. I too have faith that they will straighten it out. In our case, it was booked direct but the RCI agent neglected to apply the deposit to our booking and RCI could see the CC charge but had no idea were it went. When I asked them to apply the charge to my booking number, they charged my CC again. After calling two more times, I had racked up about $2000 in CC charges but only $1500 were applied to the booking. It was long before final payment so I took the refund of the charges over the original deposit. It took an email to the president's office to get it done. Be patient, good luck and hopefully have a great birthday and cruise.

[Cel_cruise]

918Baker - have a good birthday weekend. It's not time to worry about the doom and gloom case yet! You still have more avenues to work and have just started the process.

 

As you posted earlier that you have another credit card already, you might consider that you ask your bank to put a hold on this card so that it can't be used again while the merchant investigates the issue. You will certainly be getting a new card number anyway.

 

 

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[WhenIsLobsterNight]

Your best options at this point:

 

1. See if RCCL helps you out of this. If they offer you obc take that even.

 

 

2. If TA is part of a larger travel group go over her head and let them know what happened. They likely have insurance for this stuff.

 

 

3. I would send a Facebook message to TA and tell her you need entire $1400 returned to you by end of the weekend. You will have in writing you asked for the money back one final time. Do not threaten anything in this message. She lives on Facebook so this is the best way to reach her.

 

 

4. I owned a collection company for 14 years (sold it march of 2016) and have seen stuff like this before. 99% chance your one person TA firm is insolvent and will close shop shortly. You have three ways you can go. A) Get an attorney and sue her. You can sue for the $1400 and interest. Now SOME types of fraud can be discharged in bankruptcy, but not all. I am not sure where yours would fall into on that. B) Second option turn over to DA. $1400 is going to be a low level felony since it is over a grand. This will prevent her from opening a new shop under a new name. DA will try and get restitution, but may take a long time. C) Scorched earth. Torch her on Facebook, yelp, google and any other sites you can think of. Contact BBB and crush her. Use her real name on reviews and ruin it. See if that pulls her out of hiding. She might find it easier to just write you a check to go away.

 

 

I hate that this has happened to you. I still think you will end up ok for you. You said your husband is a police officer. What game plan is he wanting to do?

Edited February 18, 2017 by WhenIsLobsterNight

[JVilleGal]

Our dispute over CC charges with Royal took more than a week once it got to the President's office. I too have faith that they will straighten it out. In our case, it was booked direct but the RCI agent neglected to apply the deposit to our booking and RCI could see the CC charge but had no idea were it went. When I asked them to apply the charge to my booking number, they charged my CC again. After calling two more times, I had racked up about $2000 in CC charges but only $1500 were applied to the booking. It was long before final payment so I took the refund of the charges over the original deposit. It took an email to the president's office to get it done. Be patient, good luck and hopefully have a great birthday and cruise.

 

 

But did your dispute involve fraud or was it just a typical RCCL accounting/posting error??

 

It appears (not definitively confirmed yet) that the OP's Sept payment was applied to someone else's Cruise account. If final payment is typically 90 days out then this person has already Cruised. But since all three pmts on the OP's credit card stmts show as RCCL charges the OP had no reason to think this was anything more than an accounting error and inadvertent overcharge needed to be refunded.

 

The outcome will be interesting, I would encourage 918baker to contact Christopher Elliott at Elliott.org to have their advocates assist her if this is not resolved next week. She has a long paper trail at this point to both the TA & RCCL. Elliott writes for all the major travel industry publications, plus WSJ & USA Today. His consumer advocacy teams assist at no charge as long as the person has done all the hard work and has the paper trail to prove it.

 

Keep us updated!

 

Ask an Advocate for help here:

http://elliott.org/help/

 

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[sg1phileshipper]

I have no advice to give you, but I am really sorry this is happening. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and try to enjoy it. [emoji512]

 

 

Cindy

[lbjen]

OP needs to go through any written communication they had with the TA about the payment in September, and find some kind of evidence that they said they had contacted Royal, and what exactly was said, and by who.

 

It's entirely possible that the money is floating around over at Royal somewhere, now that they have located the credit card transaction and are investigating, that is still a possibility. Royal did not say outright that the payment had been applied to someone else's cruise.

 

OP are you even in Texas? Or is this an across state lines issue? I think that makes it federal doesn't it?

[S.S.Oceanlover]

OP needs to go through any written communication they had with the TA about the payment in September, and find some kind of evidence that they said they had contacted Royal, and what exactly was said, and by who.

 

It's entirely possible that the money is floating around over at Royal somewhere, now that they have located the credit card transaction and are investigating, that is still a possibility. Royal did not say outright that the payment had been applied to someone else's cruise.

 

OP are you even in Texas? Or is this an across state lines issue? I think that makes it federal doesn't it?

 

Post #167 the OP said she was told that the money was used on another reservation.

 

It looks like the OP is from Arizona.:)

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 918Baker :cool:

 

 

Bill

[Big_G]

But did your dispute involve fraud or was it just a typical RCCL accounting/posting error??

 

No fraud in my case but similarly, they can see the CC charges but just not applied to her cruise. That's why I think it will work out in the end.

[JVilleGal]

No fraud in my case but similarly, they can see the CC charges but just not applied to her cruise. That's why I think it will work out in the end.

Me too....

[JVilleGal]

200 Posts! You would think the Social Media folks at RCCL would start tracking and prodding someone to clean this up!

 

Time to post on Royal Caribbean Facebook page and get Mileage there also. [emoji48]

 

 

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