A warning to anyone flying with Lufthansa

mikeboss

Last week, I booked 4 airline tickets through Lufthansa for a total of approximately £1200, using my Visa debit card.

The following day they took 4 seperate payments from my bank account (a seperate payment for each ticket!), which correctly amounted to the same total agreed on the previous day’s booking.

I then noticed that whilst the balance on my bank account was correct, the “available balance” was much lower. Having spoken to HSBC (my bank), they informed me that this was due to Lufthansa having authorised, but not yet taken, the same total amount of around £1200, this despite the 4 payments having already left my account.

I called Lufthansa on Saturday afternoon to query this, expecting for them to apologise for this error, only for them to inform me that this was standard practice. Apparently they “reserve” the amount with your bank, and then a day or so later, take the payment again seperately. So, despite you authorising a single payment, they actually apply for two payments. I suspect that the reason they then take the the individual ticket payments seperately, is so that it doesn’t appear to your bank to be a double payment.

I was told that I needed to speak to the ticketing department to resolve this, but that they would not re-open until 9.00am on Sunday morning.
So, I called them this morning, on their central UK 0871 number. This was answered (I later found out by their Durban call centre) , I asked for ticketing, to be told that this was their Dublin office that dealt with this. I asked them to put me through, but was told they couldn’t do this, didn’t have a seperate number for Dublin and that I would need to call back, on the SAME NUMBER, and hope Dublin picked up before Durban. So, effectively, when you call their one number, it is a lottery as to whether or not the department you want to speak to, actually picks up the phone first. Otherwise you will need to keep trying!

Finally I got hold of Dublin, spoke to a supervisor and explained my frustration both regarding the fact that they had asked HSBC to keep an additional £1200 of my money illegally, but also regarding their ridiculous lottery of a telephone system. She told me that I was only seeing the negative side of things! When I asked what the positives were of their fruadulent holding (or reserving) of £1200 of my money, she couldn’t answer.

She did tell me that this double charging was common practice, but that usually when the actual payments were taken, the reserve payment would be cancelled. She said she couldn’t deal with getting this cancelled but would email a german department to resolve this. She promised me on 3 seperate occassions that she, or a colleague, would call me by 15.30 today to confirm this had been done, it is now 15.40 and still no call!

Having checked google, I see a number of other people have been double charged by Lufthansa. I wonder how many other people have “paid twice” for their airline tickets and not picked it up.

So, if you are flying with Lufthansa, please make sure there is double the amount quoted for tickets in your bank account for them to fraudulently charge. Also, if you do have to call them, please make sure you keep your fingers crossed and your lucky white heather to hand, that someone in your chosen department is quickest on the draw in picking up the phone.

On a final note, having spoken to HSBC three times, and their being aware this second charge is fruadulent, they still say that they cannot cancel it and that I will have to wait 3-5 days to ensure the payment isn’t taken, before I can have my £1200 back!


I have blogged about this but understand that as a first time user here that I cannot post the link, but I would welcome people also commenting on the blog. Please contact me for the blog address

richardw

Merchants love this kind of thing, hotels do it, car hire companies do it.
When it is probable I always use a credit card to avoid my bank account being messed up.

FH_Brit

Ok this is not Fraud - They did not intend to con you! This is a mistake where the individual tickest were put through, if they had put through the 1200 it would have "matched" the reserved amount. And cannot be fraud as Lufthansa only got paid once! The reserved amount never got to Lufthansa.

This is the problem with using Debit cards and not credit cards. As DC's take the money from your current account the merchant "reserves" the amount as you could actually walk away with goods to the value, and then it "bounces" and the merchant is left unpaid. The reserve is just in case (in your situation) that between you buying and the funds transfered someone else does a Direct Debit, or a cheque goes through, it effectively puts your Debit Card purchase in order. The downsider is that if you never had 2400.00 in your account, the way they done it your individual ticket purchase would have bounced although there was a reserved on the purcase.

Not a perfect system! If you'd use a Credit Card then you have the protecvtion that you do not get with a debit card andd this would not have happened as you can order the CC co to reverse the payment and then it is the job of the merchant to prove you purchased.