Thomson ruined our cruise but is blaming us!
LAST June, I went on a Thomson cruise with my 86-year-old mother, who uses a wheelchair.
As I have done before, I booked welfare assistance, but it was not put in place, leading to a stressful and ruined holiday.
There was no help when we arrived, the local reps were not interested and we were left sitting for an hour-and-ahalf at the airport on our return.
I have complained to Thomson, but it is claiming I did not request support. The Thomson shop where I booked the cruise has clear evidence that I did. A. P., Coventry. THOMSON has behaved appallingly throughout. First, it failed to put the help in place, then it tried to lay the blame with you. Since then, it has consistently dodged the issue and failed to fulfil commitments it made.
Several months after your initial complaint, it finally offered £ 200 in vouchers to apologise for ‘ the inconvenience caused’.
This ‘inconvenience’ included you being seated at the back of a plane when your mother was at the front, and being unable to find Thomson staff to help you while you were on holiday.
after I intervened, Thomson tried to cut me out of the loop and deal with you directly. You received a call from the ‘director’s office’, offering you £650 cash.
The person who called promised to confirm this in writing, but three weeks later, you had heard nothing more.
I, meanwhile, received a statement: ‘We are sorry to hear of Mr and Mrs P’s experience. We are in direct contact with the customers to resolve the matter.’
The reference to ‘Mr and Mrs’ underlines Thomson’s lack of attention to detail — it had not even picked up that it was you and your mother on the holiday.
It has since increased the offer slightly to £730 to include some taxi fares. It has apparently told you that, as the hotel and food were fine, you would be charged for those in full.
You have now decided to accept the offer to draw a line under the issue.
Thomson has continued to try to cut me out by telling me it’s been in touch with you merely ‘for background’ and that the issue is resolved.
It clearly fails to understand the relationship between itself and the Press. Neither I nor the Daily Mail operate as an unpaid adjunct to its hopeless customer services department.
It may wish to duck bad publicity, but we and our readers will make sure that bad practice such as this is exposed. I HAD a credit card with BHS. The last payment I made was for £65 on June 23, 2014. BHS then closed the card, and the balance was transferred to Barclaycard. However, Barclaycard did not comply with the 0 pc monthly interest rate.
It opened a Freedom Rewards Mastercard, which then became a Barclaycard Visa.
I was charged £352.88 interest in the year from May 2014 to May 2015. In the following year, I was charged £208.02.
I also have a Barclaycard Platinum Visa, on which I have been charged £3,318.11 interest over the past four years. C. E., Cardiff. HavINg looked through the statements you sent me, I can see no evidence of a 0 pc agreement. Barclaycard has confirmed this.
It says that your BHS card was migrated to Barclaycard Mastercard in 2015.
as part of the migration, it matched the interest rates for both purchases and cash, but there was no promotional rate on your account.
You settled this account at the beginning of the year, but actually overpaid, so there is a credit of £ 33.54. You need to contact Barclaycard to tell it whether you wish to have this transferred to your other account or paid back to your bank account.
On your other Barclaycard account, the Platinum visa, you are currently paying more than the minimum each month. But if you have difficulties making payments, contact Barclaycard’s financial helpline: 0800 056 1411.
The point that leaps out at me from your letter is the benefit of annual interest statements.
The credit card industry did not previously send these out, and some arm- twisting was involved before this became a regular feature.
Your case illustrates that, once 0 pc deals are concluded, credit cards are an extremely expensive way to borrow.