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Carnival Group Payment Problems.


pepperrn
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Sorry to hear you have been affected.

 

Is this only a problem for people who booked direct with Cunard ?

I think it affects all of the UK side of the Carnival Corp.

Ours is with P&O

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Had an interesting one day

After the money being pre authorised on Friday it was credited back Sunday has been requested again today . Spoke to cunard and they said 'oh yes looks like it's been took again '

We will credit back asap

Just thought I would let you know in case it happens to anyone else

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Hm, so they can debit it instantly but not credit it instantly ? Really ?

It's up to your bank or credit card provider how quickly they apply credits or cancel pre-authorisations, not Carnival who are as powerless to override your bank's processes as you are.

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It's up to your bank or credit card provider how quickly they apply credits or cancel pre-authorisations, not Carnival who are as powerless to override your bank's processes as you are.

 

Yes, I know that. When you buy something it's instant;y debited from your account. But when it goes back it takes days. The banks are choosing to do that of course.

 

But Carnival seem to be blaming everyone else but themselves. To start with I was not that bothered, but their attitude seems disgraceful now.

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But Carnival seem to be blaming everyone else but themselves. To start with I was not that bothered, but their attitude seems disgraceful now.

In what way disgraceful? Carnival appear to have reversed all the duplicate transactions and they've made it clear that anyone who has suffered a loss will be compensated so they've covered their legal obligations. Should they have been talking publicly about goodwill payments/gestures while they were still firefighting the original problem? You write as if you understand the issues but you still took a cheap pop at them while they were still presumably getting top of events, which appears to me to be somewhat premature.

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Their latest email is blaming a third-party payment company and then your own bank (i.e mine) for the time it will take to reverse their cock-up. They seem to be missing the point that they made the error in the first place; so don't go blaming their customer's bank.

 

My contract is with Cunard; if they chose to use a third-party then that's not my problem. I'm not interested in their internal payment arrangements - it is not my concern.

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I agree 100% with ToadOfToadHall here. Luckily the amount taken again from us is only a repeat deposit of £428 and not enough to cause us any problems. Like him I was fairly ambivalent about this at the start - mistakes happen, but as it's gone on and Carnival are continuing to blame everyone, but themselves, I'm getting increasingly angry. The responses to customers in real difficulty on Facebook and other social media show a complete lack of understanding or empathy to the problems that this has caused for a great many people.

 

Lets make it clear - Carnival may well have reversed the transactions where money was actually taken. This is only a minority of customers affected though. Most customers have had 'holds' placed on their account in anticipation of a pending debit. Whilst Carnival have stopped the actual debit going through, the hold remains in place and will continue to stay there until they expire naturally, which can be as long as 7 working days. The hold on our account is still there after six days and our bank say it could be next Wednesday before it goes because of the bank holiday. Whilst Carnival could remove the holds by getting in touch with banks directly with a list of customers and the details of the debit, they have chosen not to do so, at least according to my bank who have had no communication at all, presumably it's too much work and easier to let things run their course.

 

I'm not remotely interested in compensation - other than some hassle it's not cost me anything. All I'm looking for is for Carnival to step up and take responsibility, but it's far too late for that. Whoever is advising them on dealing with this issue should be sacked. It should have been a simple matter of saying, 'we've messed up, third party payment processor has taken payments again, but we take full responsibility and will ensure it is sorted out asap' Then follow it up with action instead of vacuous comments in the media and mealy mouthed emails advising customers to sort it out themselves with the bank, who can't do anything, ring Elavon or any number of other pointless actions as long as they don't bother Carnival staff with it.

 

Thank goodness the service and standard on board doesn't reflect the ineptitude and lack of compassion shown by the parent group

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Toad, very pleased to read your good news. I have to confess, I haven't looked at either of my credit cards as, in my case, ignorance is bliss. I've booked two future cruises in the past 4 months, one later this year and one next, so I guess there's every possibility that I may well have had holds too.

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Toad, very pleased to read your good news. I have to confess, I haven't looked at either of my credit cards as, in my case, ignorance is bliss. I've booked two future cruises in the past 4 months, one later this year and one next, so I guess there's every possibility that I may well have had holds too.

 

Thanks.

 

I also suspect that if I'd not had an email/read it on here, I may well never have even noticed it. I check my current account/debit card daily but have no need to do that with the credit card.

 

So in the end it's not caused me any problems. But it could easily have done of course. If I'd have had a smaller credit limit for example and then tried to use the card and there were no funds etc.

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Carnival are very slow at notifying people it would seem; the below was sent to a passenger as late as two days ago and was the first this person knew of the issue (which had occurred the previous week).

 

Dear Mr xxx,

 

I would like to apologise personally for the issues that you may have faced as a result of the recent payment error.

 

Elavon is required to retain historic data for reference and audit purposes and since we were notified on Friday, we have been working at the most senior level with Elavon, the card payment processor, to understand fully exactly what happened and how it happened.

 

I am sorry that it has taken a number of days to establish the facts, but Elavon needed to complete a thorough investigation into the system fault to ensure that the right corrective action is taken to prevent further occurrence. We are now confident that Elavon understands the cause and we have an absolute assurance that it could not happen again. I would also like to confirm categorically that this was not a result of a security breach and that no personal information has been compromised or put at risk at any time.

 

We have also been working with all UK banks to put in place the quickest way to correct the issue. The banks and credit card issuers have all been notified and I am pleased to tell you that they are doing everything possible to speed up the refund and pre-authorisation reversals.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot give you absolute clarity on timescales as each bank differs in its processes. However, as a result of these actions we have been advised that all corrective actions should be finalised by this weekend.

 

If you have incurred any bank or credit card charges as a result of this incident we will reimburse you and I will write to you again at the end of this week with details of how to claim.

 

Once again I apologise most sincerely but please be assured that we are doing all we can to resolve this as soon as possible and equally to ensure that it cannot happen again.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

simonpa.jpgSimon Palethorpe

Senior Vice President

The person concerned still has a large "hold" showing on their account as of this morning...

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I spoke to my bank a couple of times since last Friday when the hold went on. They had no contact at all from anyone at Carnival or anyone else associated with them. I was told that the hold on the account would be removed exactly 7 days after it was placed, at 10pm last night, if Carnival took no action to accelerate it. At 10pm last night the hold went. So much for Carnival processing repayments or helping things along. They just waited for it to go, requiring no action on their part, but inconveniencing customers for longer than necessary.

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Rang my bank on Wednesday morning immediately after receiving e-mail from Princess about the problem. They told me £1888 had been taken from my account not put on hold but actually taken. I explained the situation and they said the way to move forward was to "dispute" the payment which I did. HSBC then reimbursed the money until "dispute" sorted, do not know if this is a HSBC policy or for all banks for disputed claims. Immediately afterwards phoned Elavon and told them of the situation and that afternoon the money was returned to my bank account from Elavon and I then phoned HSBC and they removed the disputed credit that they had put in that morning so everything was back to normal.

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I think we are safe to conclude then that Carnival basically did nothing about their problem unless they were pushed to do so. They did what was easiest for them; i.e. do nothing and let everyone else sort it out.

 

My sentiments entirely and having been in contact with Princess I get the impression that unless you suffered bank/credit charges over this incident, which they are legally obliged to reimburse you they are not interested in anyone else who has suffered.

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We had the money taken off our bank the day before we cruised and refunded just before we returned. We had the e mail about if we had any bank charges to let them know, which we didn't, just loss of interest as we took money out of a savings account to cover and also in case any P & O cruises we had also booked came off. So I guess we won't hear from them again.

 

Interestingly someone on a Princess cruise at the moment has just been told they will have a gift delivered to their room as a gesture of good will. Interesting to see if and what they get.

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Just for information. I didn't request compensation as the amount involved wasn't enough to cause us any problems. I did however email Cunard to express my disappointment at the way it was handled and today got an email offering $60 OBC.

 

It seems to me that anyone writing in, even someone not seeking any refund of expenses incurred, is being offered something, though they clearly aren't consistent in what they offer, looking at other forums.

 

Ultimately this is likely to cause them more problems than the actual error. if they had simply written to everyone offering a small amount of OBC I'd bet 99% of people would have been perfectly happy and even somewhat impressed with the response. As it is, it will gradually filter around people that some are getting OBC and some aren't.

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We had a 2nd payment taken out of our bank account 2 months after paying the final balance for a Princess cruise. Fortunately we had enough money in account so did not incur bank charges but did cause some problems transferring money to cover direct debits and not being able to use our debit card. Contacted Princess by e-mail as requested by them when it happened and having not had a reply contacted my TA yesterday who contacted Princess. They contacted me within 15 minutes and could not apologise enough for distress and worry caused by the Elavon error and offered us a free AIBP for the duration of the cruise for my wife and I.

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Just for information. I didn't request compensation as the amount involved wasn't enough to cause us any problems. I did however email Cunard to express my disappointment at the way it was handled and today got an email offering $60 OBC.

 

Can I ask how long it took them to reply ?

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