Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
ROBBED BY RYANAIR.COM?
Yes this is exactly what is about to happen to me and my family, Ryanair is trying to take our money for a purchase that failed because of a major flaw in their online booking system. The purchase process ended up in an endless page loading loop that could only be stopped by closing the browser window.
To purchase tickets at Ryanair.com you have to go through 6 steps:
Search >> Select >> Confirm >> Services >> Payment >> Itinerary
In the last step, Itinerary, you should be presented with an Internet Booking Confirmation web page, which is clearly stated in "Ryanair.com - FAQS", containing the following information:
NOT CONFIRMED including a confirmation number,
or
CONFIRMED including a confirmation number.
In the case the CONFIRMED web page is displayed an e-mail travel itinerary will be sent out.
None of the above has been fulfilled. No CONFIRMED page, no NOT CONFIRMED page, no e-mail. The process failed in an endless page loading loop somewhere between Step 5 and 6. I did never go through these six steps and obviously NO e-mail was sent out as I never got to step 6. Very easy to understand, IF a CONFIRMED page is displayed payment was ok and an e-mail will be sent out. I have read and saved the English, German and Swedish versions from their FAQ and they all say the same.
I would have murdered, I would have gone through concrete walls to make money.
Michael O'Leary
I guess that Mr O'Leary found it easier to build concrete walls for customers to go through and murderer was maybe a bit to much, even for him.
Ryanair states that they will respond within seven working days, which they did not. Friday, 13.03.2009, I finally received a reply from Ryanair Customer Services by e-mail. It was a standard "copy/paste" message where address, ref number and name have been adjusted to "fit". They wrote that they had followed my correspondence regarding booking confirmation number XXXXXX and sympathize with my circumstances but no refund was going to be paid. Obviously they did not read my correspondence.
Doing some research on the internet I have found several other people that have run into the same failure at Ryanair.com as I did. What is really interesting is the fact that Ryanair admits to having flaws in their online booking system, but very selectively, as they refund customers for exactly the same failure if they have made a second successful purchase. The time between these purchases varies from minutes to hours to days but most importantly, they had no clue that they had been charged for the failed purchase attempt until they checked their bank account, no e-mail, no web page, nothing. I begun my third attempt after more than 30 minutes but canceled because the price had gone up and was to high. I had no clue that I had been charged for the failed purchase attempt until my wife checked our bank account. What is the difference? There is no difference, same failure, a refund has to be processed in both situations.
Should customers be punished for flaws in an online booking system of a multi-billion-euro airline?
Ryanair Staff # 3: "Website is not perfect, life is not perfect.... If you would work in your pathetic life on such a big project in such a busy environment with so little [sic] resources, you would know that most important is to have usual user behavior scenarios working rather than spending time on improbable and harmless things. We very well know about these anomalies, and unless it is not critical we are not going to sacrifice time to this."
I wonder where on their to-do-list they are as this major flaw could pass through and is still present.
Ryanair has to be stopped, We need to annoy the fuckers whenever we can. These headbangers want to make consumer rights the preserve of the rich. They are Luddites marching us back to the 18th century (Michael O'Leary quote, altered to better cope with reality).
---
On Monday evening, 02.03.2009, I went to the Ryanair website to book a flight from Stockholm to Basel, round trip, for my daughter and her four friends.
My first attempt to book the tickets failed during the Payment step with an error and page was displayed with possible causes and a "Try Again" button, this would take you back to the Payment page to correct whatever was wrong. However it was not possible to change any data as the page was disabled for editing (greyed out).
I went back to the start page and started the booking process over. Price had gone up since attempt 1. The price was slightly over their budget but we promised some parental support to take care of that "issue". After filling everything out again the Payment step failed again. This time the process got stuck trying to load the "https://www.bookryanair.com/skysales/FRItinerary.aspx" page. There was a message to "click here" if I had not been redirected within 10 seconds. Clicking this link didn't work as it tried to load the same page. The page loading process ended up in an endless loop where it constantly tried to load this "Itenerary.aspx" page. Just to be safe I left this loop running for over 30 minutes, and in the meantime I also constantly checked my e-mail for any kind of confirmation that my booking had failed or gone through. Then I decided to close the browser window as there was no other option available to stop this endless loop. Then I did a test to manually load the "https://www.bookryanair.com/skysales/FRItinerary.aspx" page to see if that could give any hint to what had happened and the same error page was displayed as in my first attempt.
Then I went back to the start page to begin my third attempt at booking. Price had gone up since attempt 2. This time the price was well over their budget and my daughter told me to cancel. I aborted the process in the "Services" or "Payment" step by closing the browser window.
The next day my wife went to a cash machine and found out that there was a large amount that was reserved/locked on our account. I called the bank and they informed me that Ryanair had reserved 8.520,15 SEK for booking tickets. I called Ryanair booking to find out what had happened and told the lady about my two failed booking attempts and asked her to sort this out. To this she only responded, in a not very friendly tone, "Sir you have made a booking, an e-mail was sent out". I tried to explain again what had happened and with the same tone she said, "Sir you have made a booking. If you want to make a complaint you have to contact Customer Services by sending a fax". Then she gave me a fax number and a confirmation number. After some searching on the web I found a site that provided a couple of e-mail addresses that "seemed" to work, or had worked, so I tried to e-mail as well. I have sent eleven e-mails to six e-mail addresses all together, my last e-mails I sent to all addresses at the same time. It seems impossible to reach Ryanair Customer Services, to the extent that I'm wondering if this is even legal within EU consumer rights.
Thursday, 05.03.2009, the amount 8.520,15 SEK was withdrawn from our account in the late afternoon. Ryanair has charged us money even though I have not completed ANY purchase process whatsoever on their web site. The steps to purchase are as follows:
Search >> Select >> Confirm >> Services >> Payment >> Itinerary
I did NEVER complete the above steps. Attempt 2 failed during the payment step, this even according to their own FAQ. In the FAQ is says that when the process is completed you should see a page with either CONFIRMED and a Confirmation Number or NOT CONFIRMED and a Confirmation Number. If the CONFIRMED message is displayed an E-MAIL will be sent out with travel itinerary. I have absolutely not been presented with anything like this, not even close. What we saw, me, my wife and daughter, was a major failure in the payment process that ended up in an endless loop and no e-mail message whatsoever was sent to my e-mail address. It is clear that after such a major failure the process should have been cancelled returning an error page.
---
To purchase tickets at Ryanair.com you have to go through 6 steps:
Search >> Select >> Confirm >> Services >> Payment >> Itinerary
In the last step, Itinerary, you should be presented with an Internet Booking Confirmation web page, which is clearly stated in "Ryanair.com - FAQS", containing the following information:
NOT CONFIRMED including a confirmation number,
or
CONFIRMED including a confirmation number.
In the case the CONFIRMED web page is displayed an e-mail travel itinerary will be sent out.
None of the above has been fulfilled. No CONFIRMED page, no NOT CONFIRMED page, no e-mail. The process failed in an endless page loading loop somewhere between Step 5 and 6. I did never go through these six steps and obviously NO e-mail was sent out as I never got to step 6. Very easy to understand, IF a CONFIRMED page is displayed payment was ok and an e-mail will be sent out. I have read and saved the English, German and Swedish versions from their FAQ and they all say the same.
---
Trying to sort this out by speaking to someone at Ryanair is impossible, booking sends you to Customer Services and you can only send fax or snail mail to Customer Services. But sending a fax to Customer Services is not as simple as you might think, Ryanair has made it difficult to know if the fax numbers listed on their web site are correct or not. The number listed for Sweden is wrong according to a lady at the Ryanair switchboard in Dublin. Over a week has now passed and the "wrong" number is still listed for Sweden. Just to be sure I faxed both numbers.I would have murdered, I would have gone through concrete walls to make money.
Michael O'Leary
I guess that Mr O'Leary found it easier to build concrete walls for customers to go through and murderer was maybe a bit to much, even for him.
Ryanair states that they will respond within seven working days, which they did not. Friday, 13.03.2009, I finally received a reply from Ryanair Customer Services by e-mail. It was a standard "copy/paste" message where address, ref number and name have been adjusted to "fit". They wrote that they had followed my correspondence regarding booking confirmation number XXXXXX and sympathize with my circumstances but no refund was going to be paid. Obviously they did not read my correspondence.
Doing some research on the internet I have found several other people that have run into the same failure at Ryanair.com as I did. What is really interesting is the fact that Ryanair admits to having flaws in their online booking system, but very selectively, as they refund customers for exactly the same failure if they have made a second successful purchase. The time between these purchases varies from minutes to hours to days but most importantly, they had no clue that they had been charged for the failed purchase attempt until they checked their bank account, no e-mail, no web page, nothing. I begun my third attempt after more than 30 minutes but canceled because the price had gone up and was to high. I had no clue that I had been charged for the failed purchase attempt until my wife checked our bank account. What is the difference? There is no difference, same failure, a refund has to be processed in both situations.
Should customers be punished for flaws in an online booking system of a multi-billion-euro airline?
Ryanair Staff # 3: "Website is not perfect, life is not perfect.... If you would work in your pathetic life on such a big project in such a busy environment with so little [sic] resources, you would know that most important is to have usual user behavior scenarios working rather than spending time on improbable and harmless things. We very well know about these anomalies, and unless it is not critical we are not going to sacrifice time to this."
I wonder where on their to-do-list they are as this major flaw could pass through and is still present.
---
Current status: Money is gone. We have filed a complaint at our bank. This process can take 1-3 months and nobody knows the outcome. I have also begun contacting media as I find this pretty scary for consumers in general.Ryanair has to be stopped, We need to annoy the fuckers whenever we can. These headbangers want to make consumer rights the preserve of the rich. They are Luddites marching us back to the 18th century (Michael O'Leary quote, altered to better cope with reality).
---
Here is the full story (Sorry for my English):---
On Monday evening, 02.03.2009, I went to the Ryanair website to book a flight from Stockholm to Basel, round trip, for my daughter and her four friends.
My first attempt to book the tickets failed during the Payment step with an error and page was displayed with possible causes and a "Try Again" button, this would take you back to the Payment page to correct whatever was wrong. However it was not possible to change any data as the page was disabled for editing (greyed out).
I went back to the start page and started the booking process over. Price had gone up since attempt 1. The price was slightly over their budget but we promised some parental support to take care of that "issue". After filling everything out again the Payment step failed again. This time the process got stuck trying to load the "https://www.bookryanair.com/skysales/FRItinerary.aspx" page. There was a message to "click here" if I had not been redirected within 10 seconds. Clicking this link didn't work as it tried to load the same page. The page loading process ended up in an endless loop where it constantly tried to load this "Itenerary.aspx" page. Just to be safe I left this loop running for over 30 minutes, and in the meantime I also constantly checked my e-mail for any kind of confirmation that my booking had failed or gone through. Then I decided to close the browser window as there was no other option available to stop this endless loop. Then I did a test to manually load the "https://www.bookryanair.com/skysales/FRItinerary.aspx" page to see if that could give any hint to what had happened and the same error page was displayed as in my first attempt.
Then I went back to the start page to begin my third attempt at booking. Price had gone up since attempt 2. This time the price was well over their budget and my daughter told me to cancel. I aborted the process in the "Services" or "Payment" step by closing the browser window.
The next day my wife went to a cash machine and found out that there was a large amount that was reserved/locked on our account. I called the bank and they informed me that Ryanair had reserved 8.520,15 SEK for booking tickets. I called Ryanair booking to find out what had happened and told the lady about my two failed booking attempts and asked her to sort this out. To this she only responded, in a not very friendly tone, "Sir you have made a booking, an e-mail was sent out". I tried to explain again what had happened and with the same tone she said, "Sir you have made a booking. If you want to make a complaint you have to contact Customer Services by sending a fax". Then she gave me a fax number and a confirmation number. After some searching on the web I found a site that provided a couple of e-mail addresses that "seemed" to work, or had worked, so I tried to e-mail as well. I have sent eleven e-mails to six e-mail addresses all together, my last e-mails I sent to all addresses at the same time. It seems impossible to reach Ryanair Customer Services, to the extent that I'm wondering if this is even legal within EU consumer rights.
Thursday, 05.03.2009, the amount 8.520,15 SEK was withdrawn from our account in the late afternoon. Ryanair has charged us money even though I have not completed ANY purchase process whatsoever on their web site. The steps to purchase are as follows:
Search >> Select >> Confirm >> Services >> Payment >> Itinerary
I did NEVER complete the above steps. Attempt 2 failed during the payment step, this even according to their own FAQ. In the FAQ is says that when the process is completed you should see a page with either CONFIRMED and a Confirmation Number or NOT CONFIRMED and a Confirmation Number. If the CONFIRMED message is displayed an E-MAIL will be sent out with travel itinerary. I have absolutely not been presented with anything like this, not even close. What we saw, me, my wife and daughter, was a major failure in the payment process that ended up in an endless loop and no e-mail message whatsoever was sent to my e-mail address. It is clear that after such a major failure the process should have been cancelled returning an error page.
---
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)