Consequence of getting cruise refund by disputing the credit card charge

[Rob-Bob]

10 minutes ago, Rob-Bob said:

Not to really get into a debate but your numbers are way off.  Ships are Carnival - 23, MSC - 14, Celebrity - 10.  I am not sure of bookings but ships are not multiples of 10.

 

I would think the number of employees would be in the same percentages.  More for CCL.

Actually I relooked at the numbers.  I am not sure how accurate but it seems pretty current - CCL 23 ships and capacity of 70,700, MSC 19 and 62,700, X 14 and 28,500.  No doubt CCL is bigger and has more bookings.  MSC is not far behind.  Both are 2.5 times bigger than X. 

[PelicanBill]

There is another factor of corporate greed at work here. The IT systems are perfectly capable of canceling reservations by the thousands and issuing refunds... if you let the present automated system do its job.

 

But that's not what the Cruise lines did. They said, we're not going to issue refunds. We're going to set up a whole new credits system and options to be processed and we're going to hold off refunds as long as possible to protect cash.

 

A whole new IT system had to be programmed. Fast. Know what happens when you program fast?  You get errors. And errors happened. Such as refunds that were due and not paid, and yet looked to customer service agents like they were paid. But they were lost downstream by errors in the system.

 

The States and the FTC need to step in and get regulations passed that refunds due are to be paid in 30 days or add 10% penalty each month overdue.

 

[Rob-Bob]

2 minutes ago, Rob-Bob said:

Actually I relooked at the numbers.  I am not sure how accurate but it seems pretty current - CCL 23 ships and capacity of 70,700, MSC 19 and 62,700, X 14 and 28,500.  No doubt CCL is bigger and has more bookings.  MSC is not far behind.  Both are 2.5 times bigger than X. 

All Carnival 98, 240,000, all Royal (including Celebrity) 50, 121,700.  Almost exactly double.  No multiples of 10.

[BlerkOne]

42 minutes ago, Rob-Bob said:

Not to really get into a debate but your numbers are way off.  Ships are Carnival - 23, MSC - 14, Celebrity - 10.  I am not sure of bookings but ships are not multiples of 10.

 

I would think the number of employees would be in the same percentages.  More for CCL.

No, your numbers are off. How many ships did Carnival have last year before having to scrap some?

[BlerkOne]

25 minutes ago, Rob-Bob said:

All Carnival 98, 240,000, all Royal (including Celebrity) 50, 121,700.  Almost exactly double.  No multiples of 10.

All Carnival after they eliminated 18 or so...

[BlerkOne]

26 minutes ago, PelicanBill said:

 

The States and the FTC need to step in and get regulations passed that refunds due are to be paid in 30 days or add 10% penalty each month overdue.

 

I'm still waiting for a $12,000+ refund from the IRS from a 2019 return. Wish I could contest that charge.

[tm_aw_love]

35 minutes ago, Sam Ting said:

Carnival is the one that laid off their employees.  Now you think it’s an acceptable excuse for them to be so untimely with the refunds?  That’s just absurd.  How many executives with million dollar salaries did they lay off?  

They still needed a reduced number of staff to run the business (including executives) but did steeply cut (up to 50%) their salaries to help compensate for it.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/14/cruise-firm-carnival-slashes-jobs-and-pay-in-face-of-covid-19-crisis

 

Not saying this justifies delays in processing, but pointing out the flawed thinking of 'the executives were making money'. 

[BlerkOne]

29 minutes ago, PelicanBill said:

There is another factor of corporate greed at work here. The IT systems are perfectly capable of canceling reservations by the thousands and issuing refunds... if you let the present automated system do its job.

 

But that's not what the Cruise lines did. They said, we're not going to issue refunds. We're going to set up a whole new credits system and options to be processed and we're going to hold off refunds as long as possible to protect cash.

 

 

Baloney. Carnival has to account for each penny and record deposits as a liability. All those deposits wouldn't keep the company afloat. It wasn't a matter of cancelling and refunding - about half the people chose to take the OBC and FCC. Carnival gave customers a choice, and that added overhead.

[tm_aw_love]

4 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

I'm still waiting for a $12,000+ refund from the IRS from a 2019 return. Wish I could contest that charge.

According to some of the thinking in here, it sounds like you should just refuse to pay any further taxes in protest 😂

[ontheweb]

6 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

I was not there, Ican only give you my view.  We had hudreds, possibly more than a thousand customers that all wanted the same thing.  We spent months trying to get them their monies back.  They thought they could do it in 90 days. If it ended there, I could floow up with just those customers for just those credits.  But many rebooked, and then those cruises were cancelled, and add another one.  Then repeat, repeat, repeat.  Try it the math does not work.They did their very best to meet their commitments to their customers.so.  I talked with these people on the phone, day after day after day (on my own dime btw, for months.  I-talked to varying levels of people within the organizations (many, not just Carnival and cruising) and they all were doing their very best.  I firmly believe that.You can accept that or not.

I will not disagree with that they were trying hard and the situation was both difficult and new to everyone. But, I still feel they could have at least attempted to give people an idea of how soon their refund should be coming to them. How many calls would have been averted if people were told a time line and not called over and over and over again?

[Oceansaway17]

6 hours ago, sanger727 said:

I don't blame the OP for disputing the charge after waiting 7 months and being told that the refund was already issued. But what I don't understand is them wanting to continue to cruise with Carnival after this. I've only every disputed a couple charges, but they were in circumstances where we believed the business did not follow the agreement/contract we made. I don't do business with businesses that don't follow agreements/contracts. There are too many fish in the sea to waste my time and money on a company that rips me off. 

 

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY.   And look at recent events.  CCL took their good time in requiring masks and doing testing.  Seems to me CCL is rather cavalier in their business practices.

 

And also, lots of folks poke fun at CCL, but in booking one of their cruises, MY GOODNESS their prices are all over the place at every deck level.  They are no longer cheaper than other lines at times.

 

So OP do not let others on this thread flame you.  7 Months was way to long to wait and if they said they did give you a credit and your card company had no records, me thinks someone else got your credit and kept it.  Tells me CCL accounting did NOT look into it that well or traced it down.

 

Move on to NCL or RCL or even Disney.  you will be happy again.  

[ontheweb]

5 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

And use manpower that was being used to process the refunds, thereby creating more delays? 

OTOH, maybe there would have been less calls and less attempted chargebacks if there was more information like we expect your refund within the next two weeks and apologize that we did not get it done in 90 days.

[Cherries Jubilee]

It’s not the policies in this post that bother me personally. I really do appreciate the insight on how this all works. I truly enjoy Carnival so I don’t want to ever be in this predicament.

 

It’s the blatant disregard for the little guy (the customer) that is keeping this post on the front page. Whether they are reasonable explanations or not, excuse after excuse is being made for the major company while some of you actually said “That’s what you deserved” “Good for you that’s what you get” to the customer who prior to this post probably had no idea what the charge backs do to the company.

 

You could have very well said “Here’s why charge backs are the wrong decision in this instance” “Hopefully you’ll get this straightened out and will take a different approach next time.” Instead of saying “I hope they ban you for life!”

 

 

Now all of the sudden I see some of you saying that people who needed their money  for some reason in a more timely manner never should have been cruising. Again this is a complete disregard for the little guy. You’re telling me you have not heard ANY of the many stories about people who are losing everything during this pandemic. Some of those people weren’t in financial ruts prior to everything going down. Some of them simply couldn’t run their companies.

 

They don’t matter to some of you but the multi million dollar companies that had to lay off some of their employees do!

 

Again I hear your policies and I have learned from them and will not make the dreaded impatient mistake unless I decide I no longer want to do business with the company anyway.

 

I just think too many of you are thinking like travel agents, stock holders, and business owners when if everything fell down for you tomorrow you’d still just be a customer.

 

[WhaleTailFlCruiser]

40 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

The OP disputed a legitimate charge. End of story.

 

I said this on page one, She/He is lucky to not be on Carnivals Do not sail list. Chargebacks are the nuclear option and should be the last resort. The Business incur a lot of fees when these things happen. 

[jimbo5544]

5 hours ago, mommysoncruiser said:

Well I can only speak for me and my experience. I had two cruise booked with Royal Caribbean and when they cancelled my cruises, they notified me of the cancellation and I had my money back within 1 or 2 weeks without pause. They were booked at different times and for different years and Royal was very efficient with refunding. Never had to ask nor did I have any unreasonable wait. This is my experience only so I cannot speak for anyone else.

I have handled cruise cancellations from all the big lines,  While yours may have been acceptable, I can tell you there were the same delays with Royal as Carnival, NCL, Celebrity etc.  The variables are timing and quantity.  Glad you got yours in acceptable time.

[ontheweb]

11 hours ago, Cherries Jubilee said:

It’s not the policies in this post that bother me personally. I really do appreciate the insight on how this all works. I truly enjoy Carnival so I don’t want to ever be in this predicament.

 

It’s the blatant disregard for the little guy (the customer) that is keeping this post on the front page. Whether they are reasonable explanations or not, excuse after excuse is being made for the major company while some of you actually said “That’s what you deserved” “Good for you that’s what you get” to the customer who prior to this post probably had no idea what the charge backs do to the company.

 

You could have very well said “Here’s why charge backs are the wrong decision in this instance” “Hopefully you’ll get this straightened out and will take a different approach next time.” Instead of saying “I hope they ban you for life!”

 

 

Now all of the sudden I see some of you saying that people who needed their money  for some reason in a more timely manner never should have been cruising. Again this is a complete disregard for the little guy. You’re telling me you have not heard ANY of the many stories about people who are losing everything during this pandemic. Some of those people weren’t in financial ruts prior to everything going down. Some of them simply couldn’t run their companies.

 

They don’t matter to some of you but the multi million dollar companies that had to lay off some of their employees do!

 

Again I hear your policies and I have learned from them and will not make the dreaded impatient mistake unless I decide I no longer want to do business with the company anyway.

 

I just think too many of you are thinking like travel agents, stock holders, and business owners when if everything fell down for you tomorrow you’d still just be a customer.

 

Very well said. Don't let Carnival's number one apologist get under your skin.

[Sam Ting]

Clearly the credit card company agreed the chargeback was legitimate based on the terms and conditions carnival agreed to when they chose to accept credit cards. Now they are being punitive toward the customer because they chose to exercise their rights. 
 

funny how they throw their terms and conditions in the consumers face when something goes wrong, but then get bothered when the consumer does the same thing. 

[sparks1093]

1 minute ago, Sam Ting said:

Clearly the credit card company agreed the chargeback was legitimate based on the terms and conditions carnival agreed to when they chose to accept credit cards. Now they are being punitive toward the customer because they chose to exercise their rights. 
 

funny how they throw their terms and conditions in the consumers face when something goes wrong, but then get bothered when the consumer does the same thing. 

I can only imagine the broo-ha-ha that would ensue if CCL allowed a second fraudulent charge to be made to the same credit card. Given all of the transactions that were taking place undoubtedly some of them were fraudulent but this is something that the company would not know so they play it safe. That seems to me to be good business practice (and others have said that this is SOP for other companies, which strengthens that conclusion). Again, this is easy enough for the consumer to rectify- use a different credit card. 

[PelicanBill]

14 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Baloney. Carnival has to account for each penny and record deposits as a liability. All those deposits wouldn't keep the company afloat. It wasn't a matter of cancelling and refunding - about half the people chose to take the OBC and FCC. Carnival gave customers a choice, and that added overhead.

 

You are talking about accounting; I am talking about back office IT systems.  Accounting deposits as a liability simply means you haven't rendered the service or product yet and MAY have to refund it.  Have you ever been with a company through bankruptcy?  Use of deposits to maintain cash to pay the bills? We know they wanted to preserve cash. They offered really good deals not to take a refund. Then they put up incredible sales for cruises that were never going to take place. Having a customer pipeline is very helpful if you have to go through bankruptcy.

 

My point is the choices that Carnival and the other lines began offering required changes in the back office systems to handle customer accounts.  Cruises were canceled and funds moved to holding accounts pending decisions. Then they were converted to refunds OR credits to be held with new policies on holding time.  All this had to be programmed. Fast.  Fast programming changes results in errors. I have seen these things happen time and time again.

[Alibaster McGillicutty]

14 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

I know I waited patiently and many others did too. It reminds me of drivers, knowing there is a lane closure ahead, speeding up and forcing their way in line ahead of those who are waiting. It doesn't make them smart, it makes then something else.

How long did it take you to get yours?

 

[sammee]

1 hour ago, Sam Ting said:

Clearly the credit card company agreed the chargeback was legitimate based on the terms and conditions carnival agreed to when they chose to accept credit cards. Now they are being punitive toward the customer because they chose to exercise their rights. 
 

funny how they throw their terms and conditions in the consumers face when something goes wrong, but then get bothered when the consumer does the same thing. 

These chargebacks are not an easy thing for the customer. I went through it with NCL for a different reason and definitely legit. But I wouldn't want to go through it again. Stressful to say the least.

[ontheweb]

3 hours ago, PelicanBill said:

 

You are talking about accounting; I am talking about back office IT systems.  Accounting deposits as a liability simply means you haven't rendered the service or product yet and MAY have to refund it.  Have you ever been with a company through bankruptcy?  Use of deposits to maintain cash to pay the bills? We know they wanted to preserve cash. They offered really good deals not to take a refund. Then they put up incredible sales for cruises that were never going to take place. Having a customer pipeline is very helpful if you have to go through bankruptcy.

 

My point is the choices that Carnival and the other lines began offering required changes in the back office systems to handle customer accounts.  Cruises were canceled and funds moved to holding accounts pending decisions. Then they were converted to refunds OR credits to be held with new policies on holding time.  All this had to be programmed. Fast.  Fast programming changes results in errors. I have seen these things happen time and time again.

You will not convince Blerk one that anything Carnival has done was not perfect. 

[Mommzie]

On 8/14/2021 at 10:43 AM, 4hunters said:

OP, I was in the exact same situation as you and same thing happened to me (CC denied due to a successful credit card dispute and eventually refunded by Carnival as well). 

 

Forgetting about that whole debacle from last year, I went ahead and booked using a different card with no problems.  A few business days later my cruise was cancelled with no reason given (they sent me a canned email).  I called to try and get an explanation.  The customer service rep couldn't tell me why, only that there was a note in my file that I needed to contact Carnival's accounting dept.  I did and was informed I was on the much famed "Do Not Sail" list! 

 

I was provided instructions for wiring Carnival the money for the cruise from last year and was immediately removed from the list (edit:  AFTER my wired payment was received by CCL).  I'm almost certain you're on the same list as I was.  Recommend you call them and take care of it before trying to book anything with Carnival.

Why would you have to send Carnival any money if the cruise was cancelled and they were going to return it anyway?

[4hunters]

32 minutes ago, Mommzie said:

Why would you have to send Carnival any money if the cruise was cancelled and they were going to return it anyway?

A successful credit card dispute + an eventual refund from Carnival = I owed them the cost of one cruise. 

[jimbo5544]

6 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

I can only imagine the broo-ha-ha that would ensue if CCL allowed a second fraudulent charge to be made to the same credit card. Given all of the transactions that were taking place undoubtedly some of them were fraudulent but this is something that the company would not know so they play it safe. That seems to me to be good business practice (and others have said that this is SOP for other companies, which strengthens that conclusion). Again, this is easy enough for the consumer to rectify- use a different credit card. 

At the end of the day, there is a correct way to rectify and one that is playing games (the motivation is really not relevant).  Some people follow the rules, some look for the short cuts.  It really is that simple. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by jimbo5544