Beware - Jetstar is NOT scamming - or is it?

[Jeany]

Hoping that we can put right for something wrong and avoid pathetic promotion by Jetstar. We booked and paid for a flight to Singapore from Surabaya (Indonesia). The flight was canceled by Jetstar but our money has not been refunded since almost 3 months ago.
Below is a chronological that will show how sad Jetstar is in handling its potential customers:

1. From: "Jetstar Schedule Change"
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:34:12 +0000
"Jetstar is sorry to inform you that since you made your booking, your flight schedule has been changed. We apologise for the short notice and regret for any inconvenience caused... A full refund of your entire journey is offered if you do not wish to travel at this new
time."

2. We decided to get a refund for the flight was no longer fit our schedule.

3. On 12 Mar 2011, Called the Jetstar customer service (Australian numbers), spoke to Seye. (promised to be refunded within 10 working days).

4. On 21 Apr 2011, Called the Jetstar customer service (Australian numbers), spoke to Lorie. (promised to be refunded within 10 working days).

5. On 13 May 2011, Called the Jetstar customer service (Australian numbers), spoke to Syness. (promised to be refunded within 10 working days).

6. On 23 May 2011, Called the Jetstar customer service (Australian numbers), spoke to Daryl. (promised to be refunded within 10 working days).

7. On 1 Jun 2011, Called the Jetstar customer service (Australian numbers), spoke to Dianne. (promised to be refunded within 10 working days).
Until NOW 1 June 2011, we have not received our refund.

Is Jetstar having a financial problem, admin problem? or is Jetstar trying to earn money by cheating on the public? By advertising economical fares and suddenly canceling the schedule and keeping the money that has been paid on booking? Not only our itinerary was utterly disrupted, and our money was held without valid reason but also we spent more money in calling Jetstar customer service to no avail!!! I wish, some Jetstar management is able to explain this event, as all the customer service people are only able to say " wait for 10 working days and we will fast track your refund... blah...blah".

Also, just found out this morning (1 June 2011, from Dianne) that customer service was not able to contact Melbourne office (whatever that means, as I am not sure if Jetstar is having any office anywhere for that matter). Jetstar treatment to us is unfair. Jetstar has managed successfully to put a shame in the Australian airlines industry.

 

[mannej]

If you think Jetstar is bad, Tiger is just as bad if not worse


Sent from my iPhone using Aust Freq Fly app

 

[Moopere]

Welcome to AFF (I see its your first post).

I can see how frustrated you are by your tone of writing but let the frustration end. Chargeback your creditcard. Within 8-12 weeks you should have your money back and the satisfaction of knowing that Jetstar have to pay a fee for all successful chargebacks.

You have rights as a consumer, exercise them. One call should be all it takes in such a situation, if the company can't resolve the conflict then you need to rescind the payment and allow further discussion (if required) with the vendor after that.

 

[ftm]

Chargeback your creditcard. Within 8-12 weeks you should have your money back and the satisfaction of knowing that Jetstar have to pay a fee for all successful chargebacks.

Love it. Great suggestion.

I too have been frustrated many times with the JQ call centre. After the staff use every excuse under the sun, after outright lying, I have just given up.

 

[MH_fan]

The last time I was supposed to get a refund from Jetstar, it came throgh within 2 weeks.

 

[Will]

Chargeback a few days after the first promised 10 day period expires. Easy. You can tell the credit card provider that you were promised a refund but it hasn't come through yet. They will sort out all the details for you - and you get your credit limit back immediately.

 

[TheInsider]

Chargeback a few days after the first promised 10 day period expires. Easy. You can tell the credit card provider that you were promised a refund but it hasn't come through yet. They will sort out all the details for you - and you get your credit limit back immediately.

Remember this is 3K so Jetstar Asia, if 'action' was to be taken it would be under Singapore law afaik?

 

[Moopere]

Remember this is 3K so Jetstar Asia, if 'action' was to be taken it would be under Singapore law afaik?

Its a reasonable point, not sure how its likely to affect Australian consumers (assuming the OP is an Australian consumer). I've had successful charge-backs against overseas vendors in the past and the 'law' or banking practise differences between countries was never exposed to me as the consumer, the whole process appeared to work just as quickly and as well as a local vendor.

I guess its possible I got lucky and the countries in question had similar enough law to Australia, or, more probably in my mind, my bank took the hit and pursued via other channels over time.

A chargeback, at the end of the day, is no more than a rescinding of payment. In and of itself, it does not talk to the requirement to pay or the validity of the sales contract, something banks would be and are loathe to get involved with (they are not law firms after all).

Therefore, after a charge-back, a requirement to satisfy a vendor invoice may still exist. It sure gets peoples attention though and works very well in my experience to bring the disputing parties together.

 

[Will]

Its a reasonable point, not sure how its likely to affect Australian consumers (assuming the OP is an Australian consumer). I've had successful charge-backs against overseas vendors in the past and the 'law' or banking practise differences between countries was never exposed to me as the consumer, the whole process appeared to work just as quickly and as well as a local vendor.

I guess its possible I got lucky and the countries in question had similar enough law to Australia, or, more probably in my mind, my bank took the hit and pursued via other channels over time.

A chargeback, at the end of the day, is no more than a rescinding of payment. In and of itself, it does not talk to the requirement to pay or the validity of the sales contract, something banks would be and are loathe to get involved with (they are not law firms after all).

Therefore, after a charge-back, a requirement to satisfy a vendor invoice may still exist. It sure gets peoples attention though and works very well in my experience to bring the disputing parties together.

Very well described!

QFCSA, I don't think that the credit card company would engage in legal action. They would just subtract the chargeback from the monthly settlement.

All you are doing is saying that JQ has agreed to refund you, and the chargeback is to expedite that process as they seem to be having some delays internally.

 

[TheInsider]

QFCSA, I don't think that the credit card company would engage in legal action. They would just subtract the chargeback from the monthly settlement.

I didn't mean it like that, what i was meant to say was going through consumer affairs or whatever wouldn't work?

 

[Will]

I didn't mean it like that, what i was meant to say was going through consumer affairs or whatever wouldn't work?

Probably would work, in my experience. If 3K sells tickets to Australians in Australia, it is subject to Australian law and courts. They may have a statement in their T&C that 'any claims must be brought in x jurisdiction', but such clauses are likely unenforceable.

If (not in this case) a case needs to be brought, file in your local tribunal (eg VCAT) against the company at the nominated Australian address (may need to do an ABN search). They will very likely respond. If (and this is very unlikely) they fail to respond, you may get a judgement in their absence which is enforcable against their Australian assets.

 

[Moopere]

I didn't mean it like that, what i was meant to say was going through consumer affairs or whatever wouldn't work?

It probably would, but honestly, the delays are potentially huge. I would expect at least a year of delay from initial complaint to consumer affairs through to actually getting a balance change in my account.

Going down this road is more useful I think when the actual contract is in dispute. In the case of a charge-back, the contract is not being disputed, or at least, the act of the charge-back is not resolving a contract dispute, its simply a payment reversal against the contract/invoice.

The consumer gets his cash back and the discussion on the merits of the contract can then be pursued taking as much time as the vendor feels is necessary. Certainly, looking at most voluntary corporate systems, with the inherent delays imposed upon consumers, this is likely to take at least 3 months and more probably, after submissions from both sides, 1-2 years.

 

[oz_mark]

The best course of action is to contact your card issuer, and explain the non service delivery.

The issue that may be against you here is the timeframes, as the issue was first raised in March.

 

[oz_mark]

Going down this road is more useful I think when the actual contract is in dispute. In the case of a charge-back, the contract is not being disputed, or at least, the act of the charge-back is not resolving a contract dispute, its simply a payment reversal against the contract/invoice.

A chargeback is a bit more complex than that!

 

[Moopere]

A chargeback is a bit more complex than that!

Certainly the mechanism is more complex, but if you boil down whats actually happening I believe its really pretty straightforward. I don't want to give anyone the impression that charge-backs are a path to free money or free services because this is certainly not the case.

Banks don't take legal positions in relation to these things and customers simply asking for their money back without cause are unlikely to be successful. However, in genuine cases it puts the onus back on the vendor to operate within a reasonable time-frame, usually 8-16 weeks. The faffing around that a lot of the worst offending companies will have their customers engage in actually works against the company in the case of a charge-back. The bank will see the obfuscation and I'd expect to see the charge back successful as a result.

I've never had a charge-back refused, and whilst I don't make a habit of it, because generally the businesses I deal with are quite reasonable, in each case I've been surprised at how well the system appears to work.

 

[Jeany]

Welcome to AFF (I see its your first post).

I can see how frustrated you are by your tone of writing but let the frustration end. Chargeback your creditcard. Within 8-12 weeks you should have your money back and the satisfaction of knowing that Jetstar have to pay a fee for all successful chargebacks.

You have rights as a consumer, exercise them. One call should be all it takes in such a situation, if the company can't resolve the conflict then you need to rescind the payment and allow further discussion (if required) with the vendor after that.

Thanks for the advice Moopere. I shall look at it.

 

[medhead]

Certainly the mechanism is more complex, but if you boil down whats actually happening I believe its really pretty straightforward. I don't want to give anyone the impression that charge-backs are a path to free money or free services because this is certainly not the case.

Banks don't take legal positions in relation to these things and customers simply asking for their money back without cause are unlikely to be successful. However, in genuine cases it puts the onus back on the vendor to operate within a reasonable time-frame, usually 8-16 weeks. The faffing around that a lot of the worst offending companies will have their customers engage in actually works against the company in the case of a charge-back. The bank will see the obfuscation and I'd expect to see the charge back successful as a result.

I've never had a charge-back refused, and whilst I don't make a habit of it, because generally the businesses I deal with are quite reasonable, in each case I've been surprised at how well the system appears to work.

I'm not sure this is exactly correct and I also think that a chargeback does involve a dispute about the contract. I base my view on having to deal with fraudulent use of my card. This is basically a charge back situation, with special circumstances. When this happened I had to complete a declaration (maybe statutory - I didn't check that). On that declaration I had 3 (4)? choices of declaration to make in relation to the goods/services:

• [1] not ordered, not recieved
  [2] ordered not received
  [3] I can't remember - maybe ordered and recieved - no chance of successful chargeback
  [4] Possbily there was an Other option that required filling in the details.

Obviously, with fraud it was declaration 1.

But in the situation described in the OP it would be declaration 2. The bank is taking a legal position simply by getting the declaration before proceeding. In the case of the second situation it is also a dispute over the contract, which has been agreed, the payment has been made but the goods have not been provided. So fundamentally that is a contractal dispute. Of course, this is the great thing about credit cards as a payment settlement service. The contractal aspects can be bypassed, as the card companies have a binding relationship with both the customer and the merchant. They can deal with the chargeback under the terms of the merchant agreement.

The final thing to mention is that someone like Visa or Amex are mutlinational companies, I'm sure they would have all the consumer laws in each country worked out and accounted for in their various agreements.

 

[Moopere]

• [1] not ordered, not recieved
  [2] ordered not received
  [3] I can't remember - maybe ordered and recieved - no chance of successful chargeback
  [4] Possbily there was an Other option that required filling in the details.

I have no doubt each bank/CC company has their own processes and filters to try to weed out fraudulent claims which will end up just wasting everyones time.

I've never been presented with the options above myself, but I am not doubting their existence.

The 4th option above would be how I've been handled every time, though as I say, its never been presented in this way to me - you make your case (written), the vendor then has an amount of time to respond. Inevitably vendors ability to process claims is laughable, which is what is causing customers so much trouble in the first place and is really the subject of the OP.

If the vendor does not respond in the timeframe allowed by the bank then the chargeback is generally accepted, or at least this has been my experience.

 

[samiam]

If the vendor does not respond in the timeframe allowed by the bank then the chargeback is generally accepted, or at least this has been my experience.

From the end-user perspective, I agree, it isn't that hard.

My one and only experience with a chargeback is as follows:

1. Company automatically charged my card for a service I had recently cancelled
2. Complained through usual channels- they claimed it was in their T's and C's and they were within their rights, due to a failure on my behalf to notify them within their required period.
3. The backward and forward email/phone call thing occurred for 10-12 weeks (not every day, simply me following up fortnightly).
4. 2 of my emails, at fortnightly intervals, went unanswered. These last 2 emails from me specifically stated that as this situation remained unresolved, that I would be seeking recourse through consumer affairs or via a credit card chargeback.
5. I called my card issuer, explained the circumstances, and they provided me with an email address to lodge my case.
6. No form to fill out- a plain email chronologically detailing the issue (this was easy with an email trail, which I attached to my email to them).
7. Within 1 week I had a confirmation that the chargeback would be investigated, and the amount was credited to my statement immediately.
8. 4 weeks later, I received confirmation that the investigation was complete, the credit would remain and no further action was necessary.

So, from my perspective (initial time wasted with the vendor aside), 1 x detailed email, an initial response in 7 days, and resolution in just over a month.

I suspect this was due to their failure to respond to the card issuer, but have no evidence apart from my own experience.

 

[loobloke]

Look's pretty much similar to my issue... except I'm one step further than you are, and that's them denying the refusal. Don't worry, it only takes the refund department like 3 months to actually decide to refuse it......

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....questions/dispute-a-refund-refusal-30341.html