This isn't a political diary - except in the sense that corporations no longer have any desire to truly serve their customers.
I work for an attorney. A couple weeks ago, he had to make travel arrangements to fly to Kansas City for some depositions. I went online to get his tickets, and found some flights via Delta Airlines. I booked his round trip flight, fully refundable, in case the depositions did not take place. I also reserved a car and a hotel room for him.
It was all fairly quick and easy.
On Tuesday, after I left work for the day the case settled. On Wednesday, he asked me to cancel his flight and get him a full refund. ....
So I went to Delta's website. I entered the ticket number. I clicked the button that said I wanted to cancel this particular round trip flight. The next screen asked me to click on the traveler and the flight I wished to cancel. I did so. The next screen had a button for "request a refund," which I then clicked.
The little timer thingy did it's swirling about for roughly 10-20 seconds, then I got a message that Delta was unable to process my request and that I needed to speak to a representative. No telephone number was provided, nor helpful link. But there was a "continue" button, so I clicked that.
I was taken to a screen which allowed me to select which country I was calling from. I clicked "United States or Canada." That provided me with an 888 number to call. When I dialed, I was given a menu of options - none of which was anything like "request a refund." So I guessed, picked #2, and was told I had a hold time of 31 to 53 minutes. Just to speak to a live voice. That's how absolutely crappy Delta's customer service is - understaffed to save them a few dollars, and inconvenient as hell if you are the customer waiting on the line.
I was on hold for 45 minutes, and then it was time for me to leave. I turned the line over to my employer and left.
When I got in today, he told me he held on the line for another 20 minutes and was then disconnected. He found another Delta customer service number and waited on hold for about half an hour, but then a live person came on. He explained his desire for a refund. She said she couldn't handle that and would have to transfer him to a different department. He asked her for that number, in case he got disconnected. She put him on hold then came back and said she didn't have that number and could not give it to him. She transferred him and luckily it went through. After another period of time on hold, a rep came on, and processed his refund request. However, the promised e-mail confirmation never came through today, so I'm not 100% confident it will be refunded. We'll just have to wait and see.
It took nearly two hours to request a refund of a fully refundable ticket. That ticket took 10 minutes to process on their website, yet the refund took nearly two hours, and was not confirmed by e-mail follow up.
There is no excuse for this level of inconsideration for the customer. It is purposeful, it is designed to be difficult, and I have a feeling some people actually give up in frustration, allowing Delta to keep money they haven't earned.