Delta owes me

Delta Airlines continues to consider thievery as good business ethic

2009-07-15T23:36:00.002+02:00

Obviously, Delta Airlines has decided to let my case rest, believing that dishonesty pays in the long run, no matter if they ripped a client off. No, Delta, you stole some hundred bucks from me. I will continue to let the public know about your way of treating customers. And the latest U.S. Department of Transportation Air Travel Consumer report illustrates that quite clearly. Delta received most complaints among all airlines. I'm not surprised at all.

Don't fly Delta

2009-04-28T15:21:00.002+02:00

Obviously, I'm not the only person who has been damnified by Delta Airlines.
I just found out that there's a dedicated website of enraged ex-Delta customers:

http://dontflydelta.com

I can wholeheartedly agree.

Getting really angry now

2009-04-28T15:09:00.004+02:00

The infuriating manner in which Delta Airlines has been treating me after stealing 430 Dollars from me is something I will not tolerate.

I would like to urge the public to choose other Airlines than Delta, as their lack of honesty and interest in satisfying a customer is nothing they should get away with.

I'm not making a big deal about this just because I paid a lot to get from A to B. I'm making a big deal because they fraudulently withdrew money from me, and they have the guts to tell me they won't respond to any further correspondence from me after perfectly ignoring what I have been complaining about in the most humble way.

This is ridiculous, but I'm not going to stop here. Perhaps a little "Don't fly Delta" campaign will make them remember that screwing your customers is not a good idea in a world of long tail communications.

This is how Delta tells you to shut up

2009-04-28T09:32:00.003+02:00

So your employee sells your products at a wrong price. You bill the customer more than twice of what he has accepted to pay. And when the customer brings that up and insists that it's not correct, you write an email as beautiful as this:

Thank you for your additional comments concerning our recent exchange of e-mails. We try to be responsive when any problem is brought to our attention, and we regret you are disappointed with our reply.

Mr. Matzner, we realize the situations you encountered left a very negative impression. As you requested, we have again reviewed the matter to see if we overlooked anything that might support a more favorable conclusion. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can add to what has already been stated in our previous correspondence.

Thank you for the opportunity to give this matter our final review. Any additional correspondence will be kept on file.

Thanks for the invitation, Delta. You'll definitely hear more from me to keep on file.

How to contact Delta Airlines

2009-04-24T11:18:00.003+02:00

After months, Delta now fixed their email contact form on their website, which is much needed as there is no email address you can find on their website. So at last I could inform them about this blog. Perhaps a little public drumroll may help get my money back.

On a second note: if anyone from outside the U.S. besides me is in the unfortunate position to have to call the phone numbers Delta publishes on their website, here are a few tips:

When a phone number such as 800-241-4141 is given, you have to dial the international code first (usually 001 or something like that - so from Germany it's 001-800-241-4141)
The toll free numbers are not toll-free when called from outside the U.S. - regular international rates apply. So your waiting experience "while we connect you to the next available agent" may be costly.
There may be a local service line in your country (not that Delta would publish those), so my best advice is to call a major airport and ask for their Delta booth - they should know if there's a local number or even a native-speaking service office.

Although the contents of the replies I have received from Delta have been unrelated to my complaints, I received these replies within reasonable time after sending my letters to them via fax. To save you from searching on their website for it, here's the fax number of the "Customer Care" office in Atlanta (mind the international code):
+1 - 888 - 880-3412

Good luck,
Bernd

How Delta turned 200 Dollars into 415.

2009-03-15T19:42:00.007+01:00

Last December, my wife Peggy and I went on a wonderful vacation to the United States. We travelled to Washington, D.C. to visit family, flew to San Francisco and took a car along Highway 1 on to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, a skiing resort in Colorado all the way to Denver, CO. From there, we planned to fly on to Atlanta, GA.

Because weather conditions were quite bad, we missed our Delta flight No. 1908 on Dec 19. So we had to purchase two new new tickets for a flight on Dec 20.

The gentleman at the desk told me before handing him my credit card, that the price of the new ticket would be 200 USD each, and I agreed. Usually, when paying by credit card, you get to sign before your card is charged. Not here - he returned the card and said we're all set and passed me the new tickets.

After reviewing my ticket I saw on page 2 an indication of the price of USD 409.50, so I went back to the counter and asked the salesman if there was a mistake, because I assumed the price to be 200 USD for each ticket. He explained that everything was correct, because my original ticket price would be taken into account, so this would just show the total for the new ticket without my old price, and I was correctly charged 200 USD for each ticket, as the passenger receipt shows.

The „PASSENDER RECEIPT“ also said that the USD 200.00 is „...THE TOTAL OF ANY ... SERVICE CHARGES OR FEES ... INCLUDING ANY DIRECT TICKET CHARGE INCLUDED IN THE FARE ...“, so I assumed this to be correct.

A few weeks later back in Germany, I received my credit card account statement, which now indicated that Delta twice charged me 415 USD.

MORE THAN TWICE OF WHAT I AGREED TO!

So I called Delta's customer service in Atlanta (mind the phone bill), and I was told that the 200 USD was only the administrative charges, and the total was indeed 415,00 calculated by adding the 409.50 ticket price + 200.00 administrative charges – 195.51 of my original tickets incl. taxes + fees.

When I sent a fax to Delta explaining in detail what had happened, I just received a response basically saying the tickets were non-refundable and everything was calculated correctly. The one thing they didn't mention with one word was that enough:

I WAS TOLD SOMETHING ELSE.

If the clerk made a mistake in communicating the total price, then it's irrelevant if he correctly calculated the fare internally: he sold it to me for 200 Dollars, not for 415, and I bought it for 200 Dollars, not 415.

So I wrote Delta another fax, asking them about the fact I was told another price by their employee, they wrote back that they're sorry I wasn't satisfied and how competitive the airline market is. Not a single word about my complaint.

My problem now is two-fold: since I don't have any written proof, I can't prove I was ripped off. Since Delta chooses to ignore my complaint, I would have to go to court, which would probably cost far more than the amount Delta owes me.

American Express insists that Delta and I have a contract, and they're required to pay the amount charged by Delta. Interestingly enough, Delta has no proof either I accepted the amount charged by them. Because I didn't.

So why this blog? I want justice.

I assume that neither the salesperson nor Delta purposefully charged me more than I was told. I assume there was a mistake.

Delta Airlines should step up, correct the mistake, and pay back the amount they owe me.