Have my parents been scammed by Princess Promotions?

[JordanF]

I addition to disputing with your credit card company, I would see if Canada (or your province) has some sort of consumer complaint place.  Here in Ohio our Attorney General has a department that enforces Ohio's consumer protection law.  It goes beyond outright fraud and protects consumers from "unfair and deceptive" practices, which this sounds like a good candidate for.  It is easy (online) and free to make a complaint, and they have pretty good success.  

 

I love cruises, but they have not always had the best honesty, especially where onsite contractors are concerned.  For example, the art auction people used to be in cahoots with an art appraiser, leading to inflated appraisals and consequently inflated prices.  Perhaps some of you have noticed that they don't do that anymore--the consequence of various legal actions.

 

I suspect that the OP's parents are not alone in this, and consumer agencies may be experienced in dealing with this.

 

Our worst experience was being oversold on meh product from the spa.  It was a small enough amount that we lived and learned.  Our second worst was being told we could buy future cruise credits and transfer the names, only to find out that was not possible.  We eventually used them on ourselves, but another lesson learned.  Neither of these happened on Princess, but the same companies work across cruise lines.  They are under intense pressure to sell, sell, sell.  Small wonder they sometimes cross the line, sometimes (like this instance) for quite a bit of money.

Edited May 6 by JordanF
Correction

[cr8tiv1]

I’m waiting for a class action suit against O.N.E. For their “not 100% transparency”.  Above the line.  Probably….honest and scrupulously….maybe not so.  
 

Buyer Beware

[CalTexCruiser]

FWIW, 

 

My former CVP attempted the hard sale of this on me a few months ago.  He is no longer my CVP.

 

So watch out for this even from your CVPs.

[memoak]

24 minutes ago, CalTexCruiser said:

FWIW, 

 

My former CVP attempted the hard sale of this on me a few months ago.  He is no longer my CVP.

 

So watch out for this even from your CVPs.

My CVP laughs when the conversation goes to “promotions”. Most think it was a bad idea

[that]

@CalTexCruiserThis is interesting amd confusing

 

The CVPs work for Princess

not O.N.E. promotions

[ontheweb]

36 minutes ago, CalTexCruiser said:

FWIW, 

 

My former CVP attempted the hard sale of this on me a few months ago.  He is no longer my CVP.

 

So watch out for this even from your CVPs.

And that would be further proof that Princess is in cahoots with this unethical people, even more than letting them use the name Princess in their title.

[PescadoAmarillo]

@PastryPal, while I feel very badly that your parents got caught up in this, I appreciate you posting here to educate us all. Your parents are very fortunate to have you in their corner on this. I have long felt that there is a special place in hell for companies that take advantage of older people, though most of us don’t want to imagine we’d ever fall for a scam (or, I should say, become involved in a non-personally advantageous business relationship).

 

For those people who think they don’t need WiFi on a cruise, having it could have stopped this in its tracks. I receive a notification the second something is charged to my credit card, even while on a ship, and the only time my card was hacked, I was notified about it while at a football game and had it all taken care of before end of the quarter. 

[Kay S]

4 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

I’m waiting for a class action suit against O.N.E. For their “not 100% transparency”.  Above the line.  Probably….honest and scrupulously….maybe not so.  
 

Buyer Beware

I guess this nonsense started after I took my long break from Princess.  Doesn't surprise me.  It's a bigger form of nickel-and-dime, and I hope there will be a suit.  Taking advantage of people is wrong--profitable to Princess, maybe, but wrong.

[memoak]

1 minute ago, Kay S said:

I guess this nonsense started after I took my long break from Princess.  Doesn't surprise me.  It's a bigger form of nickel-and-dime, and I hope there will be a suit.  Taking advantage of people is wrong--profitable to Princess, maybe, but wrong.

This is a third party vendor not Princess   

[JordanF]

8 minutes ago, memoak said:

This is a third party vendor not Princess   

Yes, it is a third-party vendor, but the cruise lines contract with mostly the same companies for future cruises, art, spa services, the stores and perhaps more.  This makes sense as these areas have their own expertise.  Still, the cruise lines partner with these companies and share in the profits with them as well.  The cruise lines are also delivering a more or less captive audience.  They share in the responsibility for business on the ships to be conducted honestly and ethically.

[memoak]

54 minutes ago, JordanF said:

Yes, it is a third-party vendor, but the cruise lines contract with mostly the same companies for future cruises, art, spa services, the stores and perhaps more.  This makes sense as these areas have their own expertise.  Still, the cruise lines partner with these companies and share in the profits with them as well.  The cruise lines are also delivering a more or less captive audience.  They share in the responsibility for business on the ships to be conducted honestly and ethically.

Then we should be screaming about the high pressure tactics in the spa. That and their insistence on waiver forms

[Kay S]

15 minutes ago, memoak said:

Then we should be screaming about the high pressure tactics in the spa. That and their insistence on waiver forms

 That's another thread, but makes sense.

[memoak]

24 minutes ago, Kay S said:

 That's another thread, but makes sense.

There is a Starbucks outlet inside my local Safeway. Does that mean the grocery store is responsible for the Starbucks franchise ?

[ontheweb]

5 minutes ago, memoak said:

There is a Starbucks outlet inside my local Safeway. Does that mean the grocery store is responsible for the Starbucks franchise ?

Maybe if the Starbucks franchise was called Safeway coffee house, they should be. Not only has Princess allowed them to be on their ships, but they have allowed them to use Princess in their title, Princess Promotions. Is it any wonder that they could be mistaken for a part of Princess?

[ChutChut]

I would dispute this immediately. From OP's account, the "consultant" either misrepresented or failed to explain what, exactly, the credit card was going to be used for. The "consultant" should have thoroughly explained  - verbally and in writing - what he was going to do with the credit card and how much the charge should be. I would present all of the facts to the credit card company and see what happens. If that isn't successful, I would get to a person in charge at Princess and explain what this "consultant" did and what he didn't do. Tell Princess you expect that charge to be reversed. 

[ChutChut]

11 minutes ago, memoak said:

There is a Starbucks outlet inside my local Safeway. Does that mean the grocery store is responsible for the Starbucks franchise ?

No - because it's clearly delineable from Safeway. Here, there, apparently, wasn't any indication that this was a third party - not Princess. 

[lstone19]

2 hours ago, memoak said:

This is a third party vendor not Princess   

 

So? Is their contract with you the passenger or with Princess? Who let them on the ship - you or Princess? Their contract is with Princess and therefore Princess is responsible for their actions because someone is responsible for their onboard conduct and it sure as heck isn't the passengers.

[PescadoAmarillo]

23 minutes ago, memoak said:

There is a Starbucks outlet inside my local Safeway. Does that mean the grocery store is responsible for the Starbucks franchise ?

I’m not sure that logic stands. Starbucks in Safeway is selling their own products, not Signature Select ice cream. Princess is allowing (leasing?) space on their ships for O.N.E. to sell Princess cruises.  Hard to get into agency law without seeing a contract (though we certainly have contractual experts on this forum!), but a strong argument can be made that O.N.E. are acting as agents for Princess.  

[DallasGuy75219]

11 hours ago, kamelia said:

Based on our experience, I would suggest that your dad look at the cruise reservation they made to see if the Future Cruise Credit that would have part of the Princess Promotions package has been applied to the cruise they booked (substantially more than the $100 per person Future Cruise Deposit).  If so, it will likely have to be removed before the credit card company can process the cancellation.  If push comes to shove with Princess, your dad has every right to stand firm on having purchased Future Cruise Deposits to be used for the cruise, and NOT Future Cruise Credits from the Princess Promotions package.

Obviously I can't speak to what OP's parents were told they were getting (FCCs or FCDs), but Princess' own semantics only confuse the issue.  When I look up my open/pending Future Cruise Deposits, Princess shows them under Future Cruise Credits section.

 

So an FCD is an FCC, but not every FCC is an FCD.

 

Edited May 6 by DallasGuy75219

[OHCruiser]

Thanks for bringing this situation to light.  We sail on Princess in August for the 1st time in years, and being forewarned about this will be forearmed.

We tend to buy basic FCDs near the end of a cruise, and we want nothing more.  This program sounds like just the kind of thing that people pay for and can never quite get the value out of it.

Here's a thread on it that's from 2/23: 

 Princess Promotions - Princess Cruises - Cruise Critic Community

 

[PastryPal]

The update. . . 

 

My dad called Princess yesterday and was given a phone number for Princess Promotions. They were, of course, closed on Sunday so he had to wait until today to speak to someone. The Princess rep also confirmed that the staff at the FCD do not work for Princess (as has been stated here).

 

He called Princess Promotions this morning. Their rep said that the issue had been "escalated" and he would receive a call back within 48 hours. . . So now we wait. . . 

 

He also called his credit card company and explained the situation. They said that he should call back in 10 days or so if he could not resolve the issue with the vendor. While the charge is disputed, he does not need to pay that portion of his bill.

 

Re the Starbucks/Safeway analogy above. . . This situation is definitely different. The guy at the FCD was wearing a Princess shirt and name tag. Starbucks is also a well-known company in their own right. Who the heck are these O.N.E. people? They're just trading on Princess' reputation. If I thought my parents, after a 10 min chat, had willingly handed over $7499 (Remember that we're Canadian so it would actually be over $10,000!) to some company that I'd never heard of, I would be seeking some sort of Britney Spears-style conservatorship for them both. 😅 

 

@PescadoAmarillo You make a good point. My parents didn't get the WiFi package on this cruise. (Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don't.) That's why he told the FCD guy that he would "look into it" when he got home. He didn't have WiFi to search any of this. 

 

 

[lahlah57]

22 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

*psyche" replaces psychic (although I am sometimes that too).

 

Either one is better than being psychotic!

[Kay S]

What does the O and the N and the E stand for?

[that]

Open Network Exchange

 

 

refer to Open Network Exchange Inc, an Arizona corporation with its registered address at 7350 N Dobson Rd., Ste 130 in Scottsdale, Arizona 85256.

 

[TRLD]

57 minutes ago, Kay S said:

What does the O and the N and the E stand for?

Open Network Exchange

 

Considering that the owners prior business was one exchanging time share weeks for cruises, and the focus of this business is supposed to be software development it kind of fits.

Edited May 7 by TRLD