oscar6220

Alright. Here's a bit of an update. Princess finally returning my CAD $25770.38 refund, no email confirmation tho they said it will be showing up on my account (After half a yr of delay). 🙂 I thought that was CAD$26000, but I'll take w/e is close to that amount. And I'm not going to do all the calculation again just to see if there's CAD$230 difference, I'll trust them this time. (if anyone can verify the amount that would be awesome 😄) Moving forward I don't think I'll be buying any OBC with Princess. I'm not against buying OBC, but you can make your informed decision with my story 😅

It was one of the most stressful moments in my life so far. But its part of the life journey right 😆 I'm glad that I have all the support and suggestions from you guys! Thanks again!

If you have traveled with Princess before this should look fairly familiar to you. (sry, need some privacy on what we spent on board :/, thus I don't think its relevant to the topic) I don't think I need further explanation on how to read this. The total refundable matches the excel file they sent me. The ongoing issue here is that someone messed up the exchange rate ...intentionally* ... 

The intention of this was really to see if anyone had refund issues with Princess who I could relate to and perhaps get attention from Princess to fix this issue asap. I really appreciate everybody who took the time to understand my situation and provide me with advice. I have emailed their executives /(Elliott Advocacy) and hopefully, someone will get back to me. I mean if people are interested in knowing how it goes in the foreseeable future, I don't mind updating here so people will see another side of how large corporations can be unreliable... (based on my experience) so others can be more careful about their money and where it’s going.

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3 minutes ago, sfaaa said:

Why are you splitting your OBC purchases into $1,250 each time and keep repeating them until they hit a big amount over a 3 day period? What's the rationale behind this?  Most people would just put one or two single charge onto their credit cards and be done with it. Not you. I don't blame Princess for getting  a bit cautious. There are too many unusual red flags showing up on your case. 

$1250 is the highest denomination ($1000 USD) per transaction I could do for OBC. In regards to the date, I recall doing it all at once, but it was probably posted on princess differently because of the processing time difference between the VISA/ MC and the bank's network. The 48.75 and 186.25 were a different package onboard, it wasn't part of the OBC purchased, idk why they put it up there.

22 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

There is something fishy here.  OP states the money was refunded to his 'account.'  In his post #61 the note allegedly sent by the bank states he notified Princess that he "no longer had access to the cards that was used."  The note makes reference only to funds from and returning to Mr Lee and always refers to the guest as "he, him" when the spreadsheet shows funds came from two people: A Mr Lee used a MasterCard and a Ms XXX used a Visa card to deposit funds.  Why wouldn't Princess write back in their note that there were funds refunded to two people when it shows that on the spreadsheet?  The spread sheet shows a lot of redactions and potentially useful information has been clipped off at the margins.  When I suggested that OP contact his bank to do a chargeback, OP never replied but in post #61 OP states he is posting an e-mail Princess sent to his bank which he is now saying has been involved.  I am shocked that a bank would share information with OP about how much was refunded to a different card holder. (Ms XXX VS Card)  The spreadsheet shows on October 15 $45,814 was debited from both the MasterCard and Visa cards, but the notes about those debits are either redacted or cut off by the margins.  I think Ceilidh1 is on to something - I cannot believe the email from Princess to the bank is so poorly worded and using poor grammar and spelling that any major company would have sent that out, especially since it is a response to a bank contesting a refund.

 

Instead of becoming clearer, this whole thing gets murkier the more you look at it.  I don't think we are getting the whole story here.

10

My partner is there to monitor the money for me, she isn't a big gambler. Cards are under my name but went into her account onboard. I just placed the funds into 2 onboard accounts so I wouldn't go nuts in the casino. It is just our names and the authorization code on the right-hand side of the excel that I clipped off 🙂

5 hours ago, sfaaa said:

This whole story is very strange from the get go. From the unusually large OBC purchased, Princess's unfavorable responses to the sudden cancellation of a credit card when a large refund is still pending.  I suspect there is more to the story than meets the eyes. 

I have nothing to hide honestly. I agree that maybe I shouldn't have purchased with different cards so recklessly (but honestly it won't matter if they don't do the conversion properly.) I canceled the 2 cards after the refund was made properly. The two cards I canceled were 8019 and 9012. I no longer have any business with that bank and I don't need the 2 credit cards from them either. That's why I canceled the cards AFTER the proper refund was made on those 2 cards. As we see I have no problem with either 2968/8019/9012 as the refund was the same as the initial purchase. I am still holding the 3809/ 2968/ 7306 and I'm having issue with the 7306 as well as 3809. I am not sure if I should post my bank statement (preferable not) to show that my initial purchase was $3000 and somehow they are getting $500 only on my 3809 card. Their accounting is a big mess tbh. 

The dispute agent from my bank isn't a native English speaker either. So I am not going to judge someone becoz of their English skills whatsoever. 

1 minute ago, RMMariner said:

I see that Princess has made a mistake in the conversion.

 

But I also see what you were doing. You put the charge on your credit cards. That way you get points, or air miles etc. You then get the refund in a cheque. Thus keeping the points.

 

Princess is wrong on the conversion, but why all of sudden were your credit cards not available for a refund? This is probably part of the reason for the mistake by Princess.

 

I have benefited from Princess' refund policy when we bought much smaller amounts of OBC and then had a refund by cheque. 

 

I do not have the whole story, and I could be entirely wrong, but it appears to me you may have been gaming the system. 

 

Just let them refund to your credit cards. I find it hard to believe they have suddenly been canceled.

 

 

Putting charges on my credit cards is to against this kinda human error and I can get some sort of protection from the bank if anything. Credit card giving you 1-2% return rate in points? Its not even worth my time tbh, considering my regular swings on the table is usually higher than 10% in my local casinos. Last time they refund it to my credit card as well (so no points were incurred), but it was in USD. It was a lot easier. 

8 minutes ago, skynight said:

I would again suggest you write to

California Department of Consumer Affairs

1625 N. Market St.

Sacramento, CA 95834, USA

 

and important send a copy to Princess Cruises Corporate Legal Department.

You probably will not receive a response from the Consumer Affairs Department, but the copy to the Princess Legal Department should create a positive response. This is what we did back some years ago and it worked. After insisting Princess did not own us any money and that we were trying to scam them their lawyer called us, said he reviewed our file and it was clear we were correct. We received our money plus some OBC for a future cruise.

 

Explain simply that Princess owes you a total of US$ 57,000 which is equivalent to CAN$71,000. Princess has insisted that they only owe  CAN$45,000. They have done their foreign exchange incorrectly and refuse to change their stance thus cheating me out of CAN$26,000. 

Do you know if their legal department has email address that I can send it to perhaps? Appreciate 

12 minutes ago, dickinson said:

Please read a couple of posts on previous page about contacting Chris Elliott.  This is exactly the stuff he helps consumers with.  Much less expensive than a lawyer.

I’ll give this a try, ty

2 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

The problem I see is that have converted US$57,267.51 to CAD using a conversion rate of 1.250.00 and ended up with CAD$45,814.01 when it should be $71,584.38. Princess has done the conversion as if the Canadian dollar was worth more than the US$, when the opposite is true.

 

Oscar - could you ask for a cheque in US$? Would you be able to bank that, even if you had to open an account in USA to do so.

I mean, everyone can see the issue except Princess. I can’t convince myself that they ain’t doing this intentionally tbh. On the email they said that they weren’t obligated to refund me in cheque. And ya, they just wanna keep the money for themselves lol. 

44 minutes ago, mcrcruiser said:

Yes best to say it was a human error ;but We have found lower level employees are power  less  & can be really annoying because they don't have a clue . Save time & energy & get to the top 

This latest reply from Princess was coming from a senior coordinator in holland America group. Doubt I could get any higher, as they are accusing me a scammer (that’s what I feel like at least)

1 minute ago, sfaaa said:

You paid C$71k OBC and received US$57k refund from Princess. US$57k x 1.25 = C$71k. Straight and simple Grade 5 math. What exactly is the problem? 

oh ya, when you look at the bottom right corner. you see some grade 1 math there

32 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Then I don't understand why you would get a check at all instead of a refund issued to your credit card.

I didn’t say I’m expecting a cheque tho, the issue is that they couldn’t refund the card correctly

7 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Precisely how did you pay the $70,000 to Princess?  Cash, Check, Money Order or Credit Card?  This may make a difference in how and how much cash gets put into a check for you.  Some funds may have been credited back to charge accounts.  (i.e. if you paid $40K from your checking account and $30K from a charge account or a trust fund, you wouldn't get the whole refund in one lump sum.)

One thing I learnt from making large purchases is to always use my credit card. Protection is important:)

Princess still insists that they are doing the correct calculation and will provide me with more detail, I can't wait to see what kind of "proof" they come up with

1 minute ago, tully07 said:

oh yeah, Canadian retail banks charge you a higher exchange rate than most currency exchanges.  Even my bank recommended that I use a currency exchange----

 

I do not let Princess do any currency conversions, I keep everything in USD on board ship -- and if they owe me a cash refund they send me a cheque in USD. 

Exactly, only if I was given a cheque in USD. I guess they don’t feel safe mailing out a cheque with that amount?

13 minutes ago, sfaaa said:

You got scammed.

Haha, retail especially banks charge ppl like crazy on exchange rate 😄

17 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

That is the way to approach it with Princess - human error. Although they are clearly in the wrong, if you talk about a 'scam' you will get their backs up.

I'm fairly sure that they knew it was an human error long time ago, I didn't say that they were scamming me (wel, not email/phone with them) since the beginning. As I mentioned earlier, they might need to face some sort of charges/cost and nobody wants to take the responsibility I'm guessing?? 

1 minute ago, Ombud said:

OP only did you call corporate at 661- 753-0180 or a general 800#? 

I'll definitely give it a try in the next few days when I have time 🙂 ty so much

I'm sorry for the delay as I'm working atm. I really appreciate all the support and help from members here :) Yes I do have the shipboard account print out (that's how I got the USD$57267.51 number) Honestly, I don't usually pay attention to invoices and stuff like that because I have faith in big companies. Given that they usually don't have any incentive to scam their customers. If it was just a few k, it probably went unnoticed :/ I hope I have some sort of record on my other past sailings to check as well they might have scammed me on my previous sailings too coz I never checked :/

I definitely learned to pay more attention to my personal finance as human error occurs happen from time to time.

12 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

👍   I can't understand why people would be commenting negatively on the OP's choice to put that much on his/her on-board account, or on his/her choice to gamble with that much money. It is his/her own business. That is not the point of the post. It is obvious that any amount of US dollars, when converted to CAD, will be a larger number.

 

Escalate this with Princess. You should be able to get someone who can understand the basics of currency conversion.

This sailing was actually from SEP last year, from customer relation to finance department... still unsolved. I'm pretty sure that they realized their mistake, but given that it was a rather large amount of money nobody wants to take the responsibility :(

5 minutes ago, Cruise Junky said:

Ok, that makes more sense.  So you bought it at 1.25 but they refunded it at prevailing rate. OUCH is right.  Jesus, that should have been discussed on the ship and payment in US dollars arranged for.  That's crazy.  I'd escalate it at Princess. 

only if they listen. Customer relation to finance department, audit my account 3 times, still "couldn't" find the error.

2 minutes ago, Cruise Junky said:

Something is wrong with your math.  Even being generous with the exchange rate, the $57k US that they said they were going to refund you is around $74k Cdn which is more than you paid initially.  That's using 130% exchange.  How much of the original OBC had you spent by the time you left the ship? 

My bad, the original rate on my booking was 1.25 and my initial purchase was actually 80k in CAD, I don't wanna exaggerate the amount. I spent a few k in the casino only.

All the OBC is on my shipboard account, I always give myself a LIMIT (to play a 10% up or down) instead of play as I go. example, I used $130 CAD to purchase $100 USD, and they refunded me $77 CAD for all the untouched OBC.

So to begin with, I'm a platinum member in Princess so it's not my first time sailing with them. I used to travel with NCL before as they have a better casino program overall. My first sailing with Princess (like many others) was south bound Alaska trip with Princess because they are simply the best in Alaska itinerary, I guess nobody can deny that XD

A few months ago, a gambling addict (LOL, even tho I work in the gambling industry) like myself got a comp'ed cruise to California. So the usual routine as I did before was to purchase a bunch of onboard credit or shipboard credit, however you like to call it, to satisfy my gambling needs plus gratuity, meals, spa treatment etc. To sum up, I bought $70k CAD worth of OBC and I thought it was alright as all the unused credit should come back to my account anyway, at least that's what happened before.

Halfway through the trip, I got a shocking news from my parents that my cousin (just a few years older than me in fact) died of cancer. Everything was so sudden and unexpected, I lost all my interest in gambling. There I have a pile of OBC left unspent, after talking to the finance manager onboard, he ensured me that everything will go back to my account accordingly in forms of cheque (he said) and I was okay with it.

Alright, fast forward a month after I didn't get my refund still, so I decided to call Princess to do a little follow up as I have bills to pay and business to run. After another month of investigation, I got a called from Princess that they will refund me in the original form of payment. (not what they promised but anyways I don't mind that either as long as I can get my money back) I told them just do it asap, it's been more than a month since I got off the ship. Luckily I didn't put all my money on the ship otherwise it could have gone REAL BAD. Here is the funny part, they offered to refund me a total of USD$57267.51 in cheque when I got off the ship. It was a printed out from my shipboard account and I verified the spending I had onboard, it was all good. So I finally see my money on my account after a month, guess what? they refunded me around $40k in CAD. Doesn't sound correct, right? Their lovely finance team decided to use the total refund in USD DIVIDED the exchange rate of (1.X) trying to get a CAD?? After a countless amount of phone calls and emails back and forth, they decided that it was right to use USD DIVIDED by the exchange rate to get a CAD refund. I'm completely shocked and hopeless, at this point in time they refused to reply to my email or call and just scammed my $26k CAD without hesitation.

TLDR: A bunch of elementary kids running a cruise line finance department that can't do basic math and won't listen to you when you try to teach them the right way to do exchange rate.