Trouble getting my money back from easyJet – Please help!

rob_blackice

Hi all,

easyJet owe my girlfriend and me £205 and we are having real trouble getting it back.

Summary of what happened:

My girlfriend and I travelled with easyJet on holiday to France this summer. Our flight, from Bordeaux on Thursday 10th August was cancelled due to a security alert in the UK, and we were delayed for three days. The easyJet representatives at the airport overlooked our entitlement (in accordance with “easyJet Carriers’ Regulations”) to certain resources; which we requested at the time of the cancellation of our flight. As we were not given these resources we were forced to pay for alternatives for the three days we had to wait which for the both of us together totalled £205. Unfortunately we are not entitled to claim back all of our extra expenses which in total are probably closer to £260.

As we are students £205 is a lot of money and so we want it back.

What we’ve done to try and get our money back:

The week after these events took place we wrote easyJet a polite letter explaining the situation and asking for the reimbursement that we are entitled to. We sent the letter recorded delivery and received confirmation of delivery from the Royal Mail. After not hearing anything from easyJet for nearly a month we sent them an email asking them to confirm that they had received the letter and that is was being processed. An automatic notification told me that I would have to wait for 20 days before I got a reply to my email. This was too long to wait especially as they could just email back and say that they hadn’t read the aforementioned letter. So we decided to phone them to try and sort this out more quickly.

Summary of Phone Calls to easyJet following letter of 15/08

ALTERNATIVE PHONE NUMBER : 01582 525422

18th September – Kyra in Middlesbrough

Kyra confirmed that our letter had been received, and due to the backlog from the terror threats, would take longer to process than normal. She could not give me a time by which we should have heard.

19th September – Anthony in Middlesbrough

Anthony explained that it normally takes 30 days to answer letters, but now will take 2 weeks longer. This means that our letter should be answered by this Friday. I explained that we have budgeted for this money that we know we are entitled to. As students approaching our overdraft limits, £205 is a large amount of money to cope without, especially as it is money we should never have spent (they should have paid from the start) and now we are wasting time and money on phone calls chasing it and getting nowhere. He gave me an email address – customer.services@easyjet.com , and assured me that they would reply within three days. It has now been six and we have heard nothing. He said he would send out a hotsheet as well.

25th September – Sarah in Middlesbrough

Sarah said that they had our letter and she could tell me nothing more. She said it would be answered in ‘a few weeks’ but could not tell me how many ‘a few’ was. She was sure we would not have heard by Friday as Anthony had suggested, and confirmed that there was nothing in the post to us. She told me that people who complaints dating from June and July still hadn’t heard anything. She says she will send a hotsheet over to Luton as well (which is where our letter is) – hopefully it will do more than Anthony’s did, but I doubt it! I asked to speak to her manager, Marie, but was told I could not, and I mentioned that I would be reporting my experience so far to Martin Lewis (moneysavingexpert.com) and Miles Brignall from the ‘Guardian’. I have given her two of my contact numbers and she says someone from Luton will call me by Wednesday. I am dubious.

Where do we go from here?
Is there a maximum time that easyJet have to respond within?
Is it possible that they could never give us our money back?

As I said before we are students and £205 is a lot of money to us. What’s more I’d hate to see easyJet gain just because they made it too difficult for us to get our money back.

Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated. Many Thanks,

Cat and Rob

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UPDATE: easyJet called today (26/0/2006) to say that they have read our letter and will provide us with a full refund. Result. They also said we will recieve a letter in the post confirming this in 5 to 10 days. However they could not tell us when we might expect to recieve this refund. Given our recent experience with easyJet I am not convinced that our troubles are over yet.

Voyager2002

If you are VERY sure of your ground, you could get a small claims court to issue a summons. They would certainly take note of that. Be aware that if it turns out that you are not legally entitled to the money you have claimed, this would then result in further costs for you.

You could also ask this question in the internet news group alt.travel.uk.air (use google to find it if you have never used newsgroups before).

rob_blackice

Voyager2002, thanks for your advice.

I have just asked the question on the relevant Google group. I’ll wait and see if I get any useful replies there. I’m a little apprehensive about using a small claims court just for fear that my case isn’t water tight.

hjb123

I can understand that you want your money back - having been a student myself in the not so distant past I know how money is tight!
Are they offering you any money or anything at all? Also what do you mean by 'extra expenses'?

rob_blackice

According to easyJet’s Carriers’ Regulations we can claim for the following:

Two phone calls each.
Travel to and from the airport to accommodation in Bordeaux.
Accommodation.
Meals and refreshments.

We have therefore asked for, but not yet recieved, reimbursment for these.

Whilst it is not listed in our entitlement according to the aforementioned document we have requested reimbursement for the extra transport we had to book back from Luton airport as we had to cancel our original transport from three days earlier.

‘Extra expenses’ refers to all the other things we had to spend money on that we cannot claim for.

So far we have recieved no money or offers from easyJet. They can't even tell us when we might expect our original letter to be read.

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NB. I have updated this post in order to clarify a few points.

hjb123

Ah right. So have they reimbursed you for the phone calls and travel and accomodation in Bordeaux etc? Maybe it would be worth you getting in touch with Consumer Direct or someone like that to see what the situation is - not sure if CD is the right people though. Check out the following link about complaining about airlines

rob_blackice

Helen, Thanks for that.

The Consumer Direct website advises that I contact a regulator or similar.

I have just been in touch with the Air Transport Users Council who have said that they may be able to act on my behalf - which is great. However, they usually allow airlines 6 to 8 weeks in which to reply before they will do anything. And then it will probably take them just as long to sort things out.

My case is coming up to 5 weeks so I'll have to wait a little while before they can start to help me, if they can help me. This looks as if it may drag on for quite a while. This certainly isn't ideal.

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UPDATE: I contacted Miles Bragnall of the Guardian in the hope that he might be able to help. He told me that the Air Transport Users Council may be able to help but that generally they were useless. He advised us to go to the small claims court if easyJet don't pay up.

loopyloo1986

I had a flight cancelled by easyjet on the 19th july and so i rang up for my refund. As my card had expired from that initially used I had to send off the new no. and details via email and they'd do it that way. A week passed, no response via email or through account so i rang up and a man opened the email there and then so I know they'd received it. He said it would take upto 3 weeks to go back in.
3 weeks went by, I sents emails and I never got a reply! I sent a written complaint with details to the customer services department and they haven't even got back to me!

I've started Uni now and I need it, and I feel as though i'm never going to get it back and they have stolen my money!

Today - 25th September I rang them up - whether this would cost me another £8 in costs god only knows!
Anyways, again the lady said email details over. I said i'd done this repeatedly during JULY, AUGUST and SEPTEMBER, and she confirmed that they had received the letter i wrote and sent recorded delivery on September 11th.
She went through the system and couldn't find the correspondance and we both checked the email addresses and they were correct, and there must be one on there because the man earlier and said!
All she could do was appologise and said to send email over again.
I asked would this be seen too soon, and she said could take upto 3 weeks (deja vu!) and unfortunately is was on a first come first served basis! I've been waiting since the 20th JULY!

I'm going to give it one more week, and if not I'm going to try my local paper and even a small claims court.

I'm a student too and dont get what it all means and I feel a right fish out of water and I'm beginning to think - oh stuff it cos its too much stress!!!

Keep me updated on your situation and any advice is appreciated!

Thanks, Louise.

oldagetraveller

loopyloo1986 wrote:

As my card had expired from that initially used I had to send off the new no. and details via email and they'd do it that way.

Personally I'd never do this as e-mails are not secure - be careful.

Catmaiow

Hi Louise,
I'm Cat, Rob's girlfriend - there are so many people in our postition (see the articles in the last two 'Guardian' issues) but please stop phoning the 0871 number!
ALTERNATIVE PHONE NUMBER : 01582 525422
It gets you through to exactly the same place; you still have to wait in the queue but at least it only charges a fraction of the 10p a min number!
We are at a loss - every phone call puts the ball back in your court and fobs you off; to send repeated emails will just get the address blocked!
According to the Guardian one woman sent about 1,100 faxes to easyJet before they would listen - but they did in the end; perhaps try this?!
Keep us posted!

Lillibet_2

BBC Watchdog's new series is due to kick off next month, can I suggest you contact them : http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/contact_index.shtm

I had huge problems getting back some money I was owed from easycar (who I woudl never ever recommend now matter how broke you are!), as soon as Watchdog started getting involved the money was transferred direct to my bank account in under a week!

Good luck;)