Wrongful Billing

[frequentrider]

We had $ credit to use before end of year, so we decided on a local 4 day cruise to Ensenada from Los Angeles. The Discovery Princess is a beautiful ship and all staff were very friendly and helpful. Three weeks before embarking, we purchased a "Couples Massage" (advertised for $329) and also $118 per person to use the Lotus Spa for four days of our cruise. The Lotus Spa is wonderful!! Staff workers were friendly and helpful. Unfortunately, and I will have to say "buyer beware" we were charged (on our on-board credit card account) an additional $329 for the couples massage, and $118 each for use of the Lotus Spa! We have spoken with 4 different agents to rectify this mistake, and now, 2 months later, still being charged for services already paid for before sailing! If you wait to reserve a couples massage until you get on the ship, you most likely will not be able to reserve a time as they are usually all filled up! Our credit card company has disputed the charges for us and seem to be losing the battle! I am only posting this to let other frequent Princess Cruise Line cruisers to beware of this. If you don't schedule the Lotus Spa and Massage weeks before sailing, you most likely will not be able to obtain these services...but, if you do schedule and pay before sailing, the Lotus Spa folks will charge you again on your ship credit card account. And then, good luck getting the double charges fixed!  Two weeks prior to sailing, we also paid $118 dollars each for the both of us.  Yep! Once on board the ship, they charged the $118 dollars each AGAIN for the both of us.  Once again, Princess Cruise Line refuses to correct this.  I have been on about 8 Princess Cruises in 15 year period, but, needless to say, this last one on November 10-14 on Discovery will be our last Princess Cruise.  I think they are hurting for revenue to remain a stable competitor and are trying scrupulous means to survive.  As a Carnival Cruise Line stockholder (who owns Princess Cruise Lines) I will definitely be selling all my shares of stock.  

[jeromep]

Welcome to Cruise Critic.  I see this is your first post.  I hope you are able to get your issue resolved, but I do feel compelled to provide some feedback.

 

On 1/29/2023 at 2:25 PM, frequentrider said:

Three weeks before embarking, we purchased a "Couples Massage" (advertised for $329) and also $118 per person to use the Lotus Spa for four days of our cruise. The Lotus Spa is wonderful!! Staff workers were friendly and helpful. Unfortunately, and I will have to say "buyer beware" we were charged (on our on-board credit card account) an additional $329 for the couples massage, and $118 each for use of the Lotus Spa!

 

Were these charges conducted on separate occasions?  Sounds like that is the case.  When did you first notice the on-board charges?  One of the things I'm in the habit of doing while on board is checking my folio regularly, at least daily, to ensure that my OBC is being used appropriately and when my OBC is used up that the charges that are showing up make sense.  A few cruises ago I had comped laundry and that is normally a fairly straight forward process.  Your laundry bill shows up on your folio, and if the laundry is to be comped it is credited back almost immediately.  Well, one day the laundry wasn't comped, so I had to talk with Passenger Services to get that taken care of.  This is all hindsight is 20/20, but if you have errors on your folio when you disembark, it is very difficult to get it resolved after you have left the ship.  On the other hand, getting those errors taken care of on board should be relatively painless... relatively.

 

On 1/29/2023 at 2:25 PM, frequentrider said:

Our credit card company has disputed the charges for us and seem to be losing the battle!

When it comes to disputing charges and the card issuer being able to actually follow through with making your provisional credit permanent, you have to claim that you did not receive the services rendered or that you did not authorize the transaction.  So, with the pre-pay, you did authorize the transaction.  Were services rendered?  Yes, but then it becomes an issue of linking up the pre-pay to the services rendered.  For the charge that occurred on board, that was authorized, both by the pre-authorization you give when you link a card to your cruise, and also when you swipe your medallion on their reader at the spa.  Going through your card issuer, the best charge to be challenging is the pre-pay, however you only have 60 days from the statement date the charge was on to make a claim against a charge.  The on-board charge from the spa goes on the folio and becomes a lump sum charge to your card when you disembark.  The card processor has to do a charge back on the whole charge, not a portion of it.  So, you aren't really going to be able to do a charge back on the whole folio charge from when you were on board.  I recall that you used to have to sign spa receipts, are they still doing that?  If you did sign a receipt at the spa, that also negates any claim that you didn't receive services.  However, it is likely that use of your medallion in the spa is also viewed as a signature authorizing the services charged.

 

It is my recollection that your card issuing bank has somewhere between 30 and 60 days to complete the dispute process.  If you just opened up the process there is a lot more time they have to work through the card processing network to resolve the issue.  You say you have been working on this for 2 months, so that is 2 months ago that your card issuer got involved or 2 months ago you started your complaint with Princess?

 

Do you have your whole folio printed out or in an electronic statement form?  Did your folio start out at 0, or did you have an OBC balance when your folio was opened?  Did you have any OBC in addition to the value of the pre-booked spa packages?  For example, if you didn't have any promo OBC, or loyalty OBC or otherwise, your pre-paid spa item may have ended up on your folio as an OBC credit.  From there if you had on-board gratuities, bar charges, laundry, specialty dining, etc., that would eat away at your pre-paid spa visit.  Then when you went to the spa they would have charged you for services at an equal rate of what you prepaid.  So, this would have been a wash, but you still would have had a bill at the end of the cruise due to the other expenses.  If I were in the same room as you and working through this with you, I'd be looking over your whole folio and doing some basic arithmetic to see where your pre-pay came into your folio and where it left.

 

On 1/29/2023 at 2:25 PM, frequentrider said:

If you wait to reserve a couples massage until you get on the ship, you most likely will not be able to reserve a time as they are usually all filled up!

I don't agree with this statement.  My wife and I have always been able to get couples massages or other treatments without pre-booking.  In fact we look for spa ads and call the spa and talk about pricing on port days.  We almost always get good appointments and better pricing for spa visits that occur on port days, even on port days after we have left port.

 

I do wish you the best on getting this resolved.  It would be nice to go over your folio and see where the pre-booking credit went, as it should have showed up on your folio at the beginning of the cruise.

[CruiseCrabs]

On 1/29/2023 at 2:25 PM, frequentrider said:

We had $ credit to use before end of year, so we decided on a local 4 day cruise to Ensenada from Los Angeles. The Discovery Princess is a beautiful ship and all staff were very friendly and helpful. Three weeks before embarking, we purchased a "Couples Massage" (advertised for $329) and also $118 per person to use the Lotus Spa for four days of our cruise. The Lotus Spa is wonderful!! Staff workers were friendly and helpful. Unfortunately, and I will have to say "buyer beware" we were charged (on our on-board credit card account) an additional $329 for the couples massage, and $118 each for use of the Lotus Spa! We have spoken with 4 different agents to rectify this mistake, and now, 2 months later, still being charged for services already paid for before sailing! If you wait to reserve a couples massage until you get on the ship, you most likely will not be able to reserve a time as they are usually all filled up! Our credit card company has disputed the charges for us and seem to be losing the battle! I am only posting this to let other frequent Princess Cruise Line cruisers to beware of this. If you don't schedule the Lotus Spa and Massage weeks before sailing, you most likely will not be able to obtain these services...but, if you do schedule and pay before sailing, the Lotus Spa folks will charge you again on your ship credit card account. And then, good luck getting the double charges fixed!  Two weeks prior to sailing, we also paid $118 dollars each for the both of us.  Yep! Once on board the ship, they charged the $118 dollars each AGAIN for the both of us.  Once again, Princess Cruise Line refuses to correct this.  I have been on about 8 Princess Cruises in 15 year period, but, needless to say, this last one on November 10-14 on Discovery will be our last Princess Cruise.  I think they are hurting for revenue to remain a stable competitor and are trying scrupulous means to survive.  As a Carnival Cruise Line stockholder (who owns Princess Cruise Lines) I will definitely be selling all my shares of stock.  

Princess now puts all of your pre-paid reservations (excursions and spa) as a credit on your folio and then your reservations are then “charged” to your folio. This is very different than what was done in the past and, frankly, it’s confusing. It’s not a double charge. You may want to check your folio to see if the bulk credit is there. If it was, the credit card company will not reverse the charges.

 

One tip: visit the spa on embarkation and ask about specials. Reservations are always an available and you may be able to get a great deal and/or add-on to the service. That said, if you must have a service for a particular day or time, definitely book ahead.

[Mike45LC]

Another tip:  If you were double charged (which might not have been the case as Crabs explained), you were charged $658, not $776, for the massage. 

[AZjohn]

On 1/29/2023 at 2:25 PM, frequentrider said:

I have been on about 8 Princess Cruises in 15 year period, but, needless to say, this last one on November 10-14 on Discovery will be our last Princess Cruise.  I think they are hurting for revenue to remain a stable competitor and are trying scrupulous means to survive.  As a Carnival Cruise Line stockholder (who owns Princess Cruise Lines) I will definitely be selling all my shares of stock.  

First, though you seem to be a repeat cruiser on Princess 8 times, this appears to be your very first time posting here so want to say welcome. $776 for a couples massage is one heck of first post headline!

 

4 hours ago, jeromep said:

One of the things I'm in the habit of doing while on board is checking my folio regularly, at least daily, to ensure that my OBC is being used appropriately and when my OBC is used up that the charges that are showing up make sense.

You know, I see this posted all the time here on the Princess board (about checking your onboard account daily) and I get it with all the horror stories here.

 

But, what does that really say about how Princess does business? I mean when we go to a resort for a week or two, the last thing I would want to do is go to the front desk every day and ask them for a print out of my charges for the last 24 hours. If I stayed at a place that I couldn’t trust them on a daily basis regarding room charges I would never-ever stay there.

 

40 minutes ago, CruiseCrabs said:

 

One tip: visit the spa on embarkation and ask about specials. Reservations are always an available and you may be able to get a great deal and/or add-on to the service.

Excellent tip and seems to always work for us 🙂 

[Rick&Jeannie]

Keeping up with your account is actually *one* thing the Medallion App does fairly well...

[cr8tiv1]

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

Princess is not the company you need to go after.  The Lotus Spa is a concession.  They "rent" spaces on Princess ships as well as on other cruise lines.

 

I agree that the best resolution comes from solving the problem while still onboard the ship.

 

 

[disneyochem]

10 hours ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

Keeping up with your account is actually *one* thing the Medallion App does fairly well...

Yes, it does!

 

I use the Crew Chat feature to dispute charges—no standing in lines and always have had the adjustments to my account.

[Itchy&Scratchy]

11 hours ago, Mike45LC said:

Another tip:  If you were double charged (which might not have been the case as Crabs explained), you were charged $658, not $776, for the massage. 

the double charge of $118 for the spa makes it $776.

[Guest ldtr]

Since they have not come back since their initial post, one has to wonder if it was normal and they had not seen the credits in their statement before they posted.

 

 

 

[nattie]

As previous posters stated, some time recently (we noticed after Covid restart) Princess changed how they do "prepayments" for services. All of your prepaid $ and OBC show up as a credit on day one and they get "used up" as cruise goes along by the posted charges. So if you had some other charge before your massages/Enclave was charged the credits will be used and you will have to pay the difference at the end. In any case, you will get a charge onboard for the services regardless of prepayment, because said prepayment is reflected as general credit not a credit for a particular service.

[Guest ldtr]

3 hours ago, nattie said:

As previous posters stated, some time recently (we noticed after Covid restart) Princess changed how they do "prepayments" for services. All of your prepaid $ and OBC show up as a credit on day one and they get "used up" as cruise goes along by the posted charges. So if you had some other charge before your massages/Enclave was charged the credits will be used and you will have to pay the difference at the end. In any case, you will get a charge onboard for the services regardless of prepayment, because said prepayment is reflected as general credit not a credit for a particular service.

Even if you have no other charge under the current system  Prepayments for SPA and excursions show up as a credit , the charges for the service show up as a debit.  Both show up.

[Mike45LC]

7 hours ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

the double charge of $118 for the spa makes it $776.

But the spa charge of $118 (twice) was not for the massage, as the title says.  

[jeromep]

17 hours ago, AZjohn said:

But, what does that really say about how Princess does business? I mean when we go to a resort for a week or two, the last thing I would want to do is go to the front desk every day and ask them for a print out of my charges for the last 24 hours. If I stayed at a place that I couldn’t trust them on a daily basis regarding room charges I would never-ever stay there.

Many years ago now we were on some ships where you could just swipe your cruise card at a kiosk, see your folio on screen and it would spit out a folio from either a laser printer or a thermal receipt printer.  It took no time at all and was helpful.

 

Medallion and the app have made tracking your folio super simple and very accessible.  As others have said, the Princess app really does a good job of displaying folio transactions.  It may be flaky at other things, but showing you what you have spent, it does that really well.

 

The example I used of a missing laundry credit was about as bad as I've experienced in terms of incorrect folio charges.  But if I hadn't been checking my folio, I wouldn't have discovered it until it was inconvenient, like on disembarkation morning, or not until after we were off the ship.  I don't think the need to review a folio, if not every day, then a few times during a cruise and definitely the day before disembarkation, isn't unreasonable.  Mistakes happen.  Mistakes are not an indication of outright fraud, they are human error or technical error.  Sure, we'd like to think that human error can be eliminated through training and technology, but years in financial services has proven to me that you can train until you are blue in the face, and you can automate even the most minuscule task, and mistakes and errors will still occur.  And when they occur you sometimes are left scratching your head and asking, "how did that happen, it shouldn't have".

 

5 hours ago, nattie said:

All of your prepaid $ and OBC show up as a credit on day one and they get "used up" as cruise goes along by the posted charges. So if you had some other charge before your massages/Enclave was charged the credits will be used and you will have to pay the difference at the end. In any case, you will get a charge onboard for the services regardless of prepayment, because said prepayment is reflected as general credit not a credit for a particular service.

Yes.

1 hour ago, ldtr said:

Even if you have no other charge under the current system  Prepayments for SPA and excursions show up as a credit , the charges for the service show up as a debit.  Both show up.

And yes, again

 

7 hours ago, ldtr said:

Since they have not come back since their initial post, one has to wonder if it was normal and they had not seen the credits in their statement before they posted.

I couldn't agree more.

[Rick&Jeannie]

I know I have spent some time at either GS or the Excursion Desk trying to make heads or tails out of what shows on your account and the crazy way that they do it.  While it *may* be an acceptable way of doing accounting...it certainly is NOT the way *I* learned basic accounting in college!

[Guest ldtr]

5 minutes ago, jeromep said:

Many years ago now we were on some ships where you could just swipe your cruise card at a kiosk, see your folio on screen and it would spit out a folio from either a laser printer or a thermal receipt printer.  It took no time at all and was helpful.

 

Medallion and the app have made tracking your folio super simple and very accessible.  As others have said, the Princess app really does a good job of displaying folio transactions.  It may be flaky at other things, but showing you what you have spent, it does that really well.

 

The example I used of a missing laundry credit was about as bad as I've experienced in terms of incorrect folio charges.  But if I hadn't been checking my folio, I wouldn't have discovered it until it was inconvenient, like on disembarkation morning, or not until after we were off the ship.  I don't think the need to review a folio, if not every day, then a few times during a cruise and definitely the day before disembarkation, isn't unreasonable.  Mistakes happen.  Mistakes are not an indication of outright fraud, they are human error or technical error.  Sure, we'd like to think that human error can be eliminated through training and technology, but years in financial services has proven to me that you can train until you are blue in the face, and you can automate even the most minuscule task, and mistakes and errors will still occur.  And when they occur you sometimes are left scratching your head and asking, "how did that happen, it shouldn't have".

 

Yes.

And yes, again

 

I couldn't agree more.

I have seen some minor errors such as a soft drink that got charged but not delivered.  But pretty much all minor.  As with other aspects of medallion there seemed to be more errors early in the restart than lately.  Probably as much the crew getting used to selecting and charging as much as the system.

[Guest ldtr]

2 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

I know I have spent some time at either GS or the Excursion Desk trying to make heads or tails out of what shows on your account and the crazy way that they do it.  While it *may* be an acceptable way of doing accounting...it certainly is NOT the way *I* learned basic accounting in college!

While it did take a little bit to get used to it, I have found that it is much better then the old system where pre-payments were not listed and you had no idea if the credits were there.  Now you can pull up your account on medallion and check most prepayments (spa, excursions, internet) right after boarding and make sure that your prepayments are all there.  The major exception is specialty dining which does not show up.

[frequentrider]

So, my wife and I took a California coastal cruise to Ensenda and back in November of 2022 on a Princess cruise ship.  Two weeks prior to boarding, my wife uses her credit card to pay for (in advance) a couples massage and four days use for both of us to use the Lotus Spa.  On the day of our disembark, we noticed we were charged for a couples massage and use of the Lotus Spa (for 4 days).  But wait a minute!  We paid for those services 2 weeks before boarding!!  NOT..says Princess cruise customer service!  They ask us to prove prior payment by showing them the credit card statement showing payment 2 weeks prior to boarding.  We fax to them a copy of the credit card statement showing that we DID pay.  They then say "your statement does not contain the FULL credit card account number".  So, we called that credit card company and got a statement showing FULL account number.  We fax it to Princess.  One month later, Princess states that our appeal is denied due to lack of proof!!  

To make matters worse, our billing (FOLIO) showed we also had a second couples massage two days after the first!  We only had ONE on our first cruise day!  Needless to say, Princess Cruise Line made a big billing mistake and will not fix it.  It has been over 4 months now with no resolve!  What a mess!  I would not recommend this cruise line!

[Rick&Jeannie]

It may very well be too late, but do you have any recourse through your CC company to decline/reverse those charges?  You may have to open a case with them and show all of your documentation...

[frequentrider]

I have gone through my BofA credit card company.  They interface with Princess, but Princess will not back down.  I have put in a complaint twice with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (.gov website).  They contact bofa to dispute with Princess.  Princess still rejects my claim.  My final attempt is now to settle in small claims court, or to pay Princess' mediator $150 to resolve this issue.   

[EDDY0827]

Sue them! Make them respond to a court appearance in Clovis. is and make them appear in Clovis. It will be a major PIA for them to show up in court. Irrc, in small claims court no lawyers are involved and you should have a better chance going up against "The Machine".

[frequentrider]

I pay $150 for an arbitrator and then Princess has to pay the arbitrator $400 per hour, according to the contract we all have to sign prior to boarding the ship.  Imagine that!  Princess to pay $400 per hour to resolve a $565 erroneous charge.  As I am retired, and live comfortably, its not the $565 , but rather, the principle of it all.

[frequentrider]

I am hoping for a favorable outcome.  I will post here in the near future when I reach the end of all this mess!

 

[david63]

Hindsight being the exact science that it is, it would have been easier to get it resolved whilst on the ship.

 

Errors on accounts do happen on all cruise lines and Customer Services can usually resolve the issue. It is always far more difficult once you have disembarked the ship.

[frequentrider]

My apologies to all that have responded to my post here.  I am new to this forum and wasn't even sure if my ordeal had posted!  My wife and I are now suffering PTSD!! LOL.  Every hotel, etc we use now, we are constantly checking our charges!  We always trusted in the past, but not much anymore.  We were given on board credits, one military ($100), and one for $50.  I did review the folio and agree that I do owe them $219.  the other charges on my folio show the $329 for couples massage and $236 for Lotus Spa usage (all of this prepaid prior to boarding).  I do agree with another here about the ambiguity of the Folio.  Since we did pay for the couples massage and use of the lotus spa before boarding, I believe the only way the masseuse could have gotten her $59 tip, would have been to charge the $329 to our account and the software then calculates the tip accordingly.   I feel that is why the additional $329 is on our Folio.  I had no problem with the tip, only the additional charge of $329 which had already been paid.