The Consumer Complaints Blog

Alright US Airways, I think we’re done here. I tried to be reasonable, but in the end, it’s probably best if we decide to forever part ways. Not as friends, mind you, but with a great deal of animosity on my part. It’s the kind of hard feelings that would make me pipe up in a crowd of strangers when someone mentions you and say, “Oh, US Airways is bullshit,” or something equally eloquent. I really haven’t thought it out yet.

Flight #1: Maintenance Issues, and Customer Service Nightmares

On first glance you seemed decent enough. The plane loaded on time and although you were hardly glamorous, I was willing to give you some strong points for punctuality…kind of like rewarding the homely for having a good sense of humor. Sadly, those bonus points didn’t last when a “routine engine check” turned into an oil leak and would require, according to the pilot, “at least two hours” to fix. It appeared things were getting off to a rocky start.

Alright, we’ll count this as strike one. These things happen. Sometimes maintenance issues pop up and it’s probably better to be safe than sorry. I’m willing to concede I’d be even more pissed off if you’d let me fall from the sky to a bloody death, so I suppose we’ll call the inconvenience what it was…just an inconvenience.

You actually worked pretty hard to figure out a solution for the twenty or so of us international travelers who were now going to miss our connections. It took about an hour, but in the end you succeeded in finding a flight that would get to Stockholm just two hours after originally intended. Not too bad, all things considered. I was ready to give you a big hug and say well done.

Unfortunately, this is where all the fun started. After checking in with the new flight you’d assigned us, and confirming we were in fact provided with seat assignments, we were rounded up by a US Airways representative who told us we were not going to be allowed on the flight. Three hours had passed from the initial deboarding, and the only progress we’d made was that we were being taken back to the original gate and removed from the flight we were already “confirmed” on. I’m only putting confirmed in quotes because I don’t think the two of us define it in quite the same way. Strike 2. What the hell, US Airways? Why you gotta screw with me like this?

After a couple more hours of sitting around waiting, we were finally given a new flight assignment that routed us through Copenhagen on SAS and got us to our destination about 8 hours after our original flight would have arrived. We were still arriving on the same day and arguably you did the best you could, so let’s call this a foul ball and keep you at two strikes….

The Return Flight Part 1: More Customer Service Nightmares and Awkward In-Flight Handjobs

Now it was time for the return flight, and I was anxious to see if I would finally end up flying with you after all. As per usual, I went online 24 hours before the departure to check in and print out my boarding pass, only to be greeted with an error message. Great. Nothing else has been convenient so far, so why start now? The message said that there was an inconsistency in my ticket info and I should clear it up at the check-in gate. Great, this sounds like a “quick” fix…

22 hours later, I found myself standing at the check-in counter and being told that the computer is giving some weird error that was preventing the employee from checking me in. What “weird error”? Why? I’ve had this flight booked for the past four months. Nothing has changed. How do you eff this up? It took approximately an hour and twenty minutes to get checked in, only to have the printer run out of paper and my boarding pass get stuck. Dear God. By the time the error got cleared and the printer restocked, I had roughly 5 minutes to get through security and make it to my gate. Your helpful advice: “What I recommend you do at this point is run.” Thanks. I was just going to meander through some of the shops and pick out a few souvenirs first.

Somehow I managed to make it just in time and boarded the plane a sweaty disgusting mess of tense nerves and inner rage. You know what? I’m counting this as strike three. You’re out before I’ve ever even flown on one of your goddamn planes. Disappointingly, I did still need to get home, so off we went in one of your shitty little tin cans.

Now, this part isn’t really your fault, but I’m pretty much considering it the swirly turd sundae to go along with the shit sandwich you’d already been serving up. The couple next to me on the flight was all over each other: kissing, fondling, caressing, and at one point I saw some blanket on lap action with rapid arm movements. This sort of thing is good for no one. To make matters worse, the guy looked like Harvey Weinstein and the girl was probably about 30 years younger than him. Not that I’m a big fan of being a captive audience to anyone’s mid-flight handskie, but seeing a couple like this makes you worry the complimentary pretzels might come right back up. Gross. After nine hours of being horribly uncomfortable and wavering back and forth between sneaking peeks and trying to ignore the daddy issues nightmare going on directly to my right, we finally landed back in the US.

Of course, right before we landed, your overweight, greasy haired, missing-a-tooth troll of a stewardess refused to give me a customs card, saying, “We already came through and passed them out.” When I pointed out that our row had been neglected, she said I could grab one at customs and then loudly muttered, “We only came through the cabin like five times” while walking away. First of all, not true. And secondly, I’m totally okay with talking shit about customers behind their back. It’s pretty much all that makes customer service jobs manageable sometimes. Still, at least wait until the customer is out of ear shot. Otherwise it’s just plain rude. But…maybe I should give her the benefit of the doubt since she could have been blinded by what was going on in the seats next to me and just proceeded to walk on by. All “five” times.

Return Flight Part 2: Broken Toilets and Bonus Landings

Upon landing in Philadelphia and going through customs, I assumed the worst was over. Boy, was I wrong. The flight took off without incident and I honestly thought I was finally going to be getting a pleasantly uneventful experience. However, about two hours into the flight someone came over the intercom to announce the toilets were clogged and to “please refrain from using them until further notice.”

No one seemed particularly happy about this announcement, but seeing as how I didn’t really need to use the bathroom anyway, I pretty much ignored it and continued working away on my laptop. After another half hour and some various tests that involved resetting all the lights over and over again, another announcement was made that we were going to be landing in Denver so a maintenance crew could pump out the shitters.

The plane erupted in a series of boos, and a couple people were shouting that we should take a vote and continue directly onto Seattle, restroom or no. However, one of your stewardesses quickly put that idea to rest when another announcement was made saying FAA regulations required us to land as soon as possible. So, it was off to Denver for an hour and a half delay along with some more time sitting next to a man I affectionately dubbed Snoring Hitler, mostly because he looked like Hitler and started snoring pretty much as soon as we boarded the plane. Again, I know this part isn’t really your fault, but regardless, it sure didn’t help.

After the bathrooms were finally fixed, we departed Denver and were greeted with another announcement requesting everyone take great care not to throw anything in the toilet. Apparently the blame was being placed on the passengers for the initial technical difficulty. From sharing stories with people in my immediate vicinity, it sounded as if this sort of technical difficulty isn’t unusual on US Airways flights. One woman reported her flight to Philadelphia had been without running water, and another woman said her flight to Germany earlier in the week had included a broken video system that needed to be reset every 20 minutes and prevented the passengers from watching any in-flight entertainment. It kind of made me wonder what sort of other maintenance issues your planes have. Are you deliberately cutting corners or just inept?

We did finally make it into Seattle, so at least you got all of us there safely. However, you have instantly shot your way to the top of my Do Not Fly list. Congratulations, you were absolutely horrible in pretty much every possible way.

Fool Me Once, Shame on You

Anyway, US Airways, what I’m trying to say is “fuck you.” You provided a piss poor experience every step of the way. The only pleasant part of my journey was when you had to put me on an SAS flight because your plane was sitting on the runway being fixed. So, I guess I should at least give you partial credit for turning me onto yet another foreign airline that actually gets it right. As far as our relationship goes, we’re done. Not only did you strike out, you didn’t really even seem to care.

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.

A little while back I was contracted to create an identity system and brochure for a company called First Playgrounds in Toronto. The company was run by two women (I’ll spare them from mentioning them by name) and a man from the 905. I can’t recall his name to be honest. Just remember him being a gaping asshole when I finally met him at our last meeting.

I haven’t thought about them for a while but I came across the video below which made me laugh and it made me think of them. They basically hired me for a $5,000 job and when it was finished they decided that they only had to pay $1,000 of it. I asked them if they were unhappy with the job. They said no. I asked them if I had made a mistake on the files. They said no. I know I went over all the costs with them before starting the work and even did it rush so they could make some meeting. They’re still using my logo (I say my logo because they didn’t pay for it so I still technically own it). Basically they just didn’t want to pay the fees after I was dumb enough to forgo my usual deposit because they professed to build playgrounds for disabled kids. (I say build but that’s an exaggeration. They only combined pieces from different manufacturers and pretended it was unique or somehow novel.) In the end, they just wanted to line their own pockets and didn’t care about much else. Hell I even had a baby on the way at the time. Just pathetic ladies… Stop pretending to care about the kids you’re building these gyms for. You just care about the buck at the end of it for doing little more than putting in someone else’s work.

It wasn’t worth my time going through small claims court for that amount so I just put them into collections. But enough about them. Try and figure out which clients from the video best represent them. It explains things much more enjoyably. First Playgrounds sucks but if you’ve ever freelanced or dealt with clients in a professional services business, you’ll find the video below very funny. Whoever did it got it bang on. Enjoy!

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.

This complaint concerns TD Canada Trust and IQOR, which apparently is a collection agency associated with the bank. In October of 2008, I finally switched my accounts from TD to a local credit union in October of 2008. I had had the TD-Canada Trust account for years – it was originally a Canada Trust account. I was of the understanding that my TD accounts would be closed for me by the Credit Union, and this belief was reaffirmed by the fact that since October I received no further statements or correspondance from my former bank.

I recieved a letter dated March 20, 2009 from IQOR stating that my account has been assigned to their office for immediate collection. The letter referenced my old checking account number and stated that the client was TD Canada Trust. I recieived a second letter dated March 31 noting my failure to respond, as well as phone calls. IQOR claims that I owe $184.73 immediately. I can only assume that these charges relate to accumulated fees and charges on my former account. Conveniently, I can still make this payment at any TD branch office, which makes me wonder if the debt has truly been assigned to IQOR as a collection agency or if IQOR and TD Canada Trust have some other type of working relationship.

I could simply make this payment, but as far as I am concerned the account has been closed and I owe them nothing. At the very least the account has been totally dormant so to what do these services charges apply? Why did the bank not send me statements, or notify me earlier instead of letting the “debt” run up. Again, I heard absolutely nothing from TD Canada Trust or IQOR until I got demand notices and phone calls from the latter. I’m very upset as this will no doubt harm my credit rating, and simply rolling over and sending them a check will do nothing to stop TD from continuing to act in this callous way.

I realize that the banks have internal dispute resolution departments in place, but I am loathe to use them since the bank obviously felt no compunction to deal with me in a timely manner. If anyone has faced an issue like this or has advice on the best way to deal with it, I would love to hear it.

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.

I recently purchased a $10 international calling card on ozprepaidcards.com.au so I could ring to South Africa. After registering for the service it took 2 weeks to get my activation code in the post. After activating this and finally figuring out how to find where the access numbers on are on the site I attempted to make a call. The initial call connected through to a wrong number, when I tired again the service just rang out. When I dialed in again I discovered my credit was all used.

So basically I spent $10 for less than 10 seconds of calling to a wrong number.

I felt obligated to report this so I could prevent this happening to anyone else.

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.

My wife and I took a little road trip over the weekend and stopped for lunch at Mo’s Steakhouse located at 7 Ogle Industrial Park Rd. Vevay, IN 47043 (812) 427-2444 .

They advertise a 10 oz. “Mo Burger seasoned with jalapenos and cilantro”. Doesn’t it sound delicious? We both ordered the “Mo Burger”, well done, which includes potato wedges. There were approximately 12 to 14 people (mostly a group of bikers, not the gang type, just a group of people that apparently enjoy the open road) in the restaurant when we arrived. The waitress came back to our table 30 minutes after ordering and apologized for the delay stating they were “busy” and offered us some “rolls”. Yeah, I’m waiting 30 minutes for a burger and I get offered bread. If a lunch crowd of 14 at 1:30 pm is busy, what do they do about a dinner service?

Anyway, our food arrived 45 minutes after ordering. The burger looked like a 10 oz burger, nothing special and 4, count them, 4 potato wedges. I cut the burger in half to find it cooked barely medium and the wife’s was a little more done with a distinctive streak of pink through the middle of the patty. This is NOT well done. We wanted to get back on the road so we decided to eat the burgers, mostly around the edges which were a little more done than the middle. When we were ready to leave, the waitress stopped by our table to see if we wanted anything else. We showed the waitress the red meat and told her the burgers were not well done and there was not even a hint of jalapenos or cilantro seasoning. The waitress then proceeded to inform us “they use other seasonings too and the juice from the jalapenos and cilantro dye the meat and it just looks that way. Believe me, it’s well done.” I asked her where she got such nonsense and she told us her boss, Mo, told her that. Being a cook myself for many years, I felt it my duty to school this young lady about honesty and common sense. Too bad Mo wasn’t there for the class.

When we left, the hostess / cashier was at the register talking to what appeared to be a cook about the delays in service. I handed her my check and my credit card. She processed the transaction, handed me the receipt and a pen, I signed it and handed it back to her, and she handed me my receipt all while totally ignoring me and talking to the cook. Not a “How are you?”, “Was everything ok?”, I heard your dining experience at Mo’s Steakhouse was a disaster, I will deduct a little off the bill”. Nope, nothing but dishonesty, rudeness, and arrogance.

Ps. Hey Mo, ever heard of a thermometer? I suggest you start using them. It’s 160 degrees or above for “well done”.

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.