Is There Legal Action Available?

[senior lady]

7 hours ago, nbsjcruiser said:

And they're still lying. 

 

Refunds fly through the system when a cruise is cancelled and is either batched through a mainframe on a regular schedule or it processed almost immediately through a windows or unix application of one sort or another. They do not have people, sitting around processing refunds one at a time. This isn't some Charles Dickens counting house for crying out loud. What happened here was simple. An accountant somewhere stepped in and ordered the refunds to be stopped to help the cash flow. They are in one of two positions right now:
1. The backlog that they created by stopping the refunds is now so great that their systems are indeed overloaded.

or 

2. They're still BS'ing their way through this and are hoping that nice fluffy post will actually be believed.

 

I'm sorry but that post means zip. Still a load of rubbish.

The offices are closed so agents are working from home and doing everything manually

[nbsjcruiser]

10 hours ago, senior lady said:

The offices are closed so agents are working from home and doing everything manually

 My point was that Princess and other cruise lines created their own backlog when they stepped in and actively stopped all refunds. Had they left things alone, refunds would have been processed automatically as soon as the travel adviser clicked cancel on the reservation. Princess stopped the refund process and backlogged their own system. Even with the backlog, to think that in 2020 they have people sitting at a desk processing refunds one at a time stretches the imagination to such an extent that one would have to be wilfully gullible to believe it.

 

The same person that threw the switch to stop the refunds is the same person who can reverse it and let the refunds resume. Might their systems be overloaded if they do that? I can see where that might be possible but don't forget - Princess created this mess and its our money their playing with, not theirs. As far as an overloaded system goes, in the age of the Cloud, fixing that is as simple as cranking up more virtual machines to handle the load. That will cost $$$ so the other option is to allow only a small number of refunds to enter the system at a time so that the systems don't get overloaded. Princess has chosen the latter. The fact that they're still playing with someone else's money doesn't seem to bother them. 

[stracpat]

I am now so over Princess and will never choose to cruise with them again. Likewise with the travel agent we used to book our cruise... we were due to get on the Sapphire Princess on the 13th February, pretty much one of the first cruises cancelled, and it was less than 24 hours to boarding in Singapore.

We have managed to get the refund for our cruise but after being promised by Princess on several occasions that they would refund our expenses they now no longer return emails and are downright rude when you call them. The reason being that we used the flights and hotel so why should we get them back.... so disappointing and flights from the UK aren't cheap.

 

We are going to call ABTA tomorrow to see where we stand as we don't know who we should be chasing for compensation. The whole experience is a PR disaster to be honest... after this is over I am sure lots of people will show their feelings on different companies behaviours with their feet!

[nbsjcruiser]

7 minutes ago, stracpat said:

I am now so over Princess and will never choose to cruise with them again. Likewise with the travel agent we used to book our cruise... we were due to get on the Sapphire Princess on the 13th February, pretty much one of the first cruises cancelled, and it was less than 24 hours to boarding in Singapore.

We have managed to get the refund for our cruise but after being promised by Princess on several occasions that they would refund our expenses they now no longer return emails and are downright rude when you call them. The reason being that we used the flights and hotel so why should we get them back.... so disappointing and flights from the UK aren't cheap.

 

 

You used the flights and hotels to get to the cruise THAT THEY CANCELLED! Don't blame you for being angry.

[stracpat]

1 minute ago, nbsjcruiser said:

You used the flights and hotels to get to the cruise THAT THEY CANCELLED! Don't blame you for being angry.

If it was a couple hundred we would probably accept it as a loss of the times, but it was four of us and it is thousands!

 

They sign off with the most condescending statement too... "assuring you of our best intentions at all times" YEH RIGHT! 

 

It will definitely be some time before cruising is as relaxing as it has been previously I think 😞

[nbsjcruiser]

8 minutes ago, stracpat said:

It will definitely be some time before cruising is as relaxing as it has been previously I think 😞

 

Yes and the cruise lines are shooting themselves in the foot with this refund nonsense. I can't imagine anyone willingly forking out anymore than about $25 to hold a future cruise at this point. If you put down the usual deposit of $250pp and later change your mind, there are no guarantees you'll get your deposit back. The only way I'd consider doing it is if there was an independent 3rd party that held all funds and didn't release them to the cruise line until the day you step on the ship. That way if the cruise line cancelled, the 3rd party would do the refund.

 

When and if its safe to resume cruising and if we decide to cruise again we will be booking last minute from now on. I'll arrange flights independent of a cruise and pick the best option I can that fit into our schedule. Princess and the rest have not shown they can be trusted with money. It will be a long time before I trust any cruise line.  

[SCOOTERNINJA]

1 minute ago, nbsjcruiser said:

 

Yes and the cruise lines are shooting themselves in the foot with this refund nonsense. I can't imagine anyone willingly forking out anymore than about $25 to hold a future cruise at this point. If you put down the usual deposit of $250pp and later change your mind, there are no guarantees you'll get your deposit back. The only way I'd consider doing it is if there was an independent 3rd party that held all funds and didn't release them to the cruise line until the day you step on the ship. That way if the cruise line cancelled, the 3rd party would do the refund.

 

When and if its safe to resume cruising and if we decide to cruise again we will be booking last minute from now on. I'll arrange flights independent of a cruise and pick the best option I can that fit into our schedule. Princess and the rest have not shown they can be trusted with money. It will be a long time before I trust any cruise line.  

Good point on the third party.  These are often called ‘escrow agents’ and used in just about every industry but cruising for some reason.  When you buy a house, you don’t give the deposit to the seller until closing rather it goes to a third party.  

[nbsjcruiser]

Just now, SCOOTERNINJA said:

Good point on the third party.  These are often called ‘escrow agents’ and used in just about every industry but cruising for some reason.  

hmmm, I learned something new today. :-)

[Cuedon]

59 minutes ago, stracpat said:

I am now so over Princess and will never choose to cruise with them again. Likewise with the travel agent we used to book our cruise... we were due to get on the Sapphire Princess on the 13th February, pretty much one of the first cruises cancelled, and it was less than 24 hours to boarding in Singapore.

We have managed to get the refund for our cruise but after being promised by Princess on several occasions that they would refund our expenses they now no longer return emails and are downright rude when you call them. The reason being that we used the flights and hotel so why should we get them back.... so disappointing and flights from the UK aren't cheap.

 

We are going to call ABTA tomorrow to see where we stand as we don't know who we should be chasing for compensation. The whole experience is a PR disaster to be honest... after this is over I am sure lots of people will show their feelings on different companies behaviours with their feet!

 

Have you filed one of those request for reimbursement forms, or are you just calling/emailing? (Not that filing that form does much... mine's probably buried under all the stuff in the current mess. I'll call it good if I get it back this year.)

[stracpat]

1 minute ago, Cuedon said:

 

Have you filed one of those request for reimbursement forms, or are you just calling/emailing? (Not that filing that form does much... mine's probably buried under all the stuff in the current mess. I'll call it good if I get it back this year.)

 

Yup, filled in twice.... they wouldn't accept it from us and the travel agent had to send it in. Then we went through various it has been received, it hasn't been received to it has been processed but we aren't reimbursing hotel and flights... now just being completely ignored! Probably in their pile of we don't care anymore claims! Haha

[Roberto256]

16 minutes ago, stracpat said:

 Probably in their pile of we don't care anymore claims! Haha

 

Not to be argumentative, but I don't think they have a separate pile for those claims.

That's where they all go!

 

Were you already in Singapore, when your cruise was cancelled?

 

[stracpat]

1 minute ago, Roberto256 said:

 

Not to be argumentative, but I don't think they have a separate pile for those claims.

That's where they all go!

 

Were you already in Singapore, when your cruise was cancelled?

 

Yeh, we were... we got an email from Princess at about 4pm saying it was cancelled and that was all we heard from them.

The UK had only just started work at that point I think so we were up most of the night trying to get hold of our agent and decide what to do next! 

[CruisingAlong4Now]

I am owed a 5 digit refund.  I requested the refund in February and still haven't received it.  I originally was told it would take 30 days and now they are not even telling me a target refund date.  It is very frustrating to have to wait to get my own money. 

 

Princess isn't the one who owes me the money.  It is another organization with a not very reliable history of openness and candor.  Still waiting for my 2019 tax refund from the IRS.  😉

[Roberto256]

2 hours ago, stracpat said:

Yeh, we were... we got an email from Princess at about 4pm saying it was cancelled and that was all we heard from them.

 

That's horrible.

 

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Roberto256

[Cuedon]

Wow, that's nasty. I was originally slated to be on the Feb 2 Sapphire out of Singapore, but because my flight plan involved a ~1 hour refuelling stop in XMN, they barred me from boarding since I had technically been to China, despite nobody (other than possibly the crew) leaving or entering the plane.

 

They ended up refunding everything I had paid to them with no fuss, and I even got Economy+ seats for the long leg, so I basically got to hang around touring Singapore for a few days for only the cost of hotel.

 

I'd keep trying, directly with the customer relations department.

[npcl]

11 hours ago, stracpat said:

I am now so over Princess and will never choose to cruise with them again. Likewise with the travel agent we used to book our cruise... we were due to get on the Sapphire Princess on the 13th February, pretty much one of the first cruises cancelled, and it was less than 24 hours to boarding in Singapore.

We have managed to get the refund for our cruise but after being promised by Princess on several occasions that they would refund our expenses they now no longer return emails and are downright rude when you call them. The reason being that we used the flights and hotel so why should we get them back.... so disappointing and flights from the UK aren't cheap.

 

We are going to call ABTA tomorrow to see where we stand as we don't know who we should be chasing for compensation. The whole experience is a PR disaster to be honest... after this is over I am sure lots of people will show their feelings on different companies behaviours with their feet!

Did you book the airlines, flight and cruise through the same TA?  Were they booked individually or as a package?

 

Being in the UK if you booked through a TA in the UK, you might look into Package Travel Regulations 2018 to see it might fall under some of the protections it provides.

Cruises by their very nature tend to fall under PTR.  Not sure how that might impact your other expenses, for example under PTR you can claim out of pocket expenses due to  a vendors breach of contract, but do not know if that applies to the tickets you used to get to the location of the cruise.  Also not sure if the protections apply to a pandemic situation.

 

There are also loss of enjoyment provisions.

Edited May 22, 2020 by npcl

[stracpat]

6 hours ago, npcl said:

Did you book the airlines, flight and cruise through the same TA?  Were they booked individually or as a package?

 

Being in the UK if you booked through a TA in the UK, you might look into Package Travel Regulations 2018 to see it might fall under some of the protections it provides.

Cruises by their very nature tend to fall under PTR.  Not sure how that might impact your other expenses, for example under PTR you can claim out of pocket expenses due to  a vendors breach of contract, but do not know if that applies to the tickets you used to get to the location of the cruise.  Also not sure if the protections apply to a pandemic situation.

 

There are also loss of enjoyment provisions.

 

We have read bits and pieces of the regs and are hoping to proceed going down that route.

I think I will call ABTA today to see where we stand! Thank you 🙂

[nbsjcruiser]

Filed a dispute with my CC company this morning. Will it work? I'm not entirely hopeful but what was encouraging was that the CC company did say I had done all the proper steps, contacted Princess several times, have a copy of the reservation with the cancellation policy. Next step is they will remove the charge from my card immediately then contact Princess. At the very least it will take several weeks of investigation but during that time it is removed from the card which should buy additional time for Princess to actually do the refund.

 

Its really depressing that I had to stoop to this. A large company like Carnival Corp should be trustworthy enough to be relied on. I can't believe Princess (and by extension Carnival Corp) is making this bad situation so much worse by crapping on so much of its loyal customer base. It really is an unforced error on their behalf. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

 

Sure puts a different light on their loyalty programs doesn't it? Loyal to who?

[senior lady]

4 hours ago, nbsjcruiser said:

Filed a dispute with my CC company this morning. Will it work? I'm not entirely hopeful but what was encouraging was that the CC company did say I had done all the proper steps, contacted Princess several times, have a copy of the reservation with the cancellation policy. Next step is they will remove the charge from my card immediately then contact Princess. At the very least it will take several weeks of investigation but during that time it is removed from the card which should buy additional time for Princess to actually do the refund.

 

Its really depressing that I had to stoop to this. A large company like Carnival Corp should be trustworthy enough to be relied on. I can't believe Princess (and by extension Carnival Corp) is making this bad situation so much worse by crapping on so much of its loyal customer base. It really is an unforced error on their behalf. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

 

Sure puts a different light on their loyalty programs doesn't it? Loyal to who?

Most of the cruise lines are handling it the same way.   I have noticed that full refund comments have started to show up on a regular basis on the facebook pages this week.   

[nbsjcruiser]

Received a call from Princess Executive office last night after several emails from me to them requesting a phone call. The executive assistant explained what we all already know. They have a large backlog, systems are backed up but they've put in software and hardware updates to speed the refunds. 

 

I had several points I tried to make:

1. The backlog was created by Princess when someone in the executive office stopped the refunds in mid March. The resultant backlog is a self inflicted wound with impeccably bad timing. The last thing Princess or any cruise line needs right now is another black eye.
2. I don't believe that they have people managing refunds one at a time. I feel its simply a lie to drag the refunds out indefinitely. She assured me I was wrong and claimed to know nothing about anyone stopping refunds. 
3. While I am owed a modest amount, there are many who are owed thousands of dollars and are rightly upset. Princess has ticked off an entire segment of its customer base many of who are long time customers. Princess is compounding a bad situation.
4. While the cruise industry cant be blamed for this (my opinion) their mishandling of the resultant disaster is going to hang around long after cruising returns. Much trust and loyalty has been lost. 
5. Withholding refunds rightly due their customers is sending a terrible message. Why would anyone now place a down payment on a cruise a year or two in the future when it appears that getting their money back in case of a cancellation is doubtful? 

Long story short, I am still waiting for a refund that I'm not convinced will ever show up. If I lived in California I'd be filing a small claims case but unfortunately I'm not and the only option I have is to file a dispute with my CC company to buy a month or so for Princess to actually return the money. 

[Daniel A]

13 minutes ago, nbsjcruiser said:

Received a call from Princess Executive office last night after several emails from me to them requesting a phone call. The executive assistant explained what we all already know. They have a large backlog, systems are backed up but they've put in software and hardware updates to speed the refunds. 

 

I had several points I tried to make:

1. The backlog was created by Princess when someone in the executive office stopped the refunds in mid March. The resultant backlog is a self inflicted wound with impeccably bad timing. The last thing Princess or any cruise line needs right now is another black eye.
2. I don't believe that they have people managing refunds one at a time. I feel its simply a lie to drag the refunds out indefinitely. She assured me I was wrong and claimed to know nothing about anyone stopping refunds. 
3. While I am owed a modest amount, there are many who are owed thousands of dollars and are rightly upset. Princess has ticked off an entire segment of its customer base many of who are long time customers. Princess is compounding a bad situation.
4. While the cruise industry cant be blamed for this (my opinion) their mishandling of the resultant disaster is going to hang around long after cruising returns. Much trust and loyalty has been lost. 
5. Withholding refunds rightly due their customers is sending a terrible message. Why would anyone now place a down payment on a cruise a year or two in the future when it appears that getting their money back in case of a cancellation is doubtful? 

Long story short, I am still waiting for a refund that I'm not convinced will ever show up. If I lived in California I'd be filing a small claims case but unfortunately I'm not and the only option I have is to file a dispute with my CC company to buy a month or so for Princess to actually return the money. 

I think you can hire an attorney in Southern California to file on your behalf if you're that anxious about not getting your refund.  The only problem is that you'll only get a piece of paper from the court saying that Princess owes you the money and you're out the retainer to the lawyer.  You could then file a lien against property owned by Princess but then you would have to wait until Princess sells the property to get your money.

 

Why would Princess refund you money if you withdraw the money from Princess via a cc dispute?

[nbsjcruiser]

4 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

I think you can hire an attorney in Southern California to file on your behalf if you're that anxious about not getting your refund.  The only problem is that you'll only get a piece of paper from the court saying that Princess owes you the money and you're out the retainer to the lawyer.  You could then file a lien against property owned by Princess but then you would have to wait until Princess sells the property to get your money.

 

Why would Princess refund you money if you withdraw the money from Princess via a cc dispute?

Filing a dispute is a mechanism to ensure Princess acknowledges debt, nothing more. The CC company contacts Princess and asks for a response to the dispute. Princess will undoubtedly respond that the refund is indeed owed and they will be refunding it in due course. The CC company will then put the charge back on the CC. This will take up to 50 days during which time Princess may very well process the refund. If that happens, the dispute will fall off the radar. Getting Princess to acknowledge the debt is a good thing in case any further action takes place which in my case is unlikely. For someone who might be owed thousands of dollars, this would be an important thing to do. I'm doing it to speed things along hopefully or to buy time. Having the charge removed from my card for up to 50 days in effect buys that extra time for the refund to come through.

[ceilidh1]

3 hours ago, nbsjcruiser said:

Received a call from Princess Executive office last night after several emails from me to them requesting a phone call. The executive assistant explained what we all already know. They have a large backlog, systems are backed up but they've put in software and hardware updates to speed the refunds. 

 

I had several points I tried to make:

1. The backlog was created by Princess when someone in the executive office stopped the refunds in mid March. The resultant backlog is a self inflicted wound with impeccably bad timing. The last thing Princess or any cruise line needs right now is another black eye.
2. I don't believe that they have people managing refunds one at a time. I feel its simply a lie to drag the refunds out indefinitely. She assured me I was wrong and claimed to know nothing about anyone stopping refunds. 
3. While I am owed a modest amount, there are many who are owed thousands of dollars and are rightly upset. Princess has ticked off an entire segment of its customer base many of who are long time customers. Princess is compounding a bad situation.
4. While the cruise industry cant be blamed for this (my opinion) their mishandling of the resultant disaster is going to hang around long after cruising returns. Much trust and loyalty has been lost. 
5. Withholding refunds rightly due their customers is sending a terrible message. Why would anyone now place a down payment on a cruise a year or two in the future when it appears that getting their money back in case of a cancellation is doubtful? 

Long story short, I am still waiting for a refund that I'm not convinced will ever show up. If I lived in California I'd be filing a small claims case but unfortunately I'm not and the only option I have is to file a dispute with my CC company to buy a month or so for Princess to actually return the money. 

Happy you at least got a call back. I have been less than impressed with their communication (or lack of) and the way I was spoken to by customer relations yesterday left a very bad taste. To your point 2 about stopping refunds, the TA webinar from this week acknowledged that this had, indeed, happened. They "turned off" their automation for refunds, which is why nothing had been refunded until they decided to start doing so. Basically, between March 12th and May 15th, no (or very, very few) refunds were given.

[caribill]

4 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

Happy you at least got a call back. I have been less than impressed with their communication (or lack of) and the way I was spoken to by customer relations yesterday left a very bad taste. To your point 2 about stopping refunds, the TA webinar from this week acknowledged that this had, indeed, happened. They "turned off" their automation for refunds, which is why nothing had been refunded until they decided to start doing so. Basically, between March 12th and May 15th, no (or very, very few) refunds were given.

 

Yes, they said they turned off the computer automatic refunds, but they said they said when that was done they started processing the refunds manually, not that they had stopped period.

[dog]

9 hours ago, nbsjcruiser said:

Filing a dispute is a mechanism to ensure Princess acknowledges debt, nothing more. The CC company contacts Princess and asks for a response to the dispute. Princess will undoubtedly respond that the refund is indeed owed and they will be refunding it in due course. The CC company will then put the charge back on the CC. This will take up to 50 days during which time Princess may very well process the refund. If that happens, the dispute will fall off the radar. Getting Princess to acknowledge the debt is a good thing in case any further action takes place which in my case is unlikely. For someone who might be owed thousands of dollars, this would be an important thing to do. I'm doing it to speed things along hopefully or to buy time. Having the charge removed from my card for up to 50 days in effect buys that extra time for the refund to come through.

This is my thinking exactly. After a month of cruiseline stringing my TA & myself along with excuses I filed a dispute and had my $2 k deposit back / settled within 2 weeks. resolved in my favour. 
 

After seeing the hundreds of posts, in several refund threads, by the same people, I see a few more have followed this route. 
 

Princess has lost my loyalty over the handling/ delay of those who still do not have a refund from March 12 th Pause 1