Billing dispute with Princess - Who's right?

[Rollexx]

This all seems a little fishy. The first thing I would do was make damn sure those contact numbers on the email really belong to Princess. Maybe I'm a little paranoid but it smells like a scam to me.

[Cruise Raider]

I have found additional charges on my bill when sailing with Princess, never ever with any other lines. Usually, we were able to get them taken care of onboard. One time, we had an extra charge added on the last day of the cruise and we could not get this resolved before disembarking -- it was an extra casino charge applied to our card at the time when we were at dinner. We didn't lose our key cards and never shared our code with anyone else. We decided to try to dispute it when we got home. As you said, it wasn't so much the money, just had a charge show up on our card that absolutely, positively was not ours....we weren't even in the casino at that time. We really had an amazing cruise on the Golden but this did leave a bit of a bad taste. We had no luck disputing the charge after we returned to home. And although this is a bit of a different situation than yours, I do agree that Princess has a bit of work to do in their finance dept. They do make mistakes!! Doesn't seem to make sense to cheat those repeat customers...doesn't bode well for spreading the good news, does it?

Hope you are able to resolve this issue.

[BruceMuzz]

I'm glad you know us so well... Compared to what we spent for that sailing for three cabins, all onboard expenses and whatnot, $300 is nothing.

It's the principle. Whether it's $3, $30 or $300, we shouldn't have to pay it twice.

 

It's the money.

[hubofhockey]

The OP needs to be careful as Princess may ban them from cruising if this is not resolved. :(

 

Why would the OP want to cruise again with Princess after dealing with this garbage? I agree with others that the burden is on Princess to produce a copy of the folio and payments and settlement. What a crappy way to treat your customers. :mad:

 

Oh, it doesn't make a difference to me if it's the "money", how much money, or anything else. This is just wrong on so many counts. Hey Princess, you are buying yourself some great publicity here. Keep it up.

[velvetred]

Doesn't the OP need to dispute the charges in writing? Normally, disputing charges only on the phone does not preserve the rights of the consumer. Other posters seem correct in that the simplest thing to do is request Princess to provide a duplicate of the shipboard folio. This request should be included in the written notice of the dispute of the charge.

[Angsa]

I suspect the person/organization requesting the OP to pay is NOT from Princess, just pretending to be. They somehow discovered this $300 charge and try to make some easy money out of it. They probably have nothing at all to do with Princess.

 

I would call Princess directly about it, not this person/organization. It is utterly strange for Princess to want to upset a highly valued loyal customer.

[myfhn]

Be really really careful of "phishing", where somebody poses as a well-known company or authority but is not! Especially with email, I get letters all the time that look like my bank or a credit card company, but it is not them.

 

It would be extremely unprofessional for Princess to use emails for collections.

 

Your best bet is to find a phone number for Princess billing independently from the email communications you have been getting and find out if this is even a legitimate claim.

 

The fakes like to threaten you to scare you into giving them information, like when you'll be gone from home or your account number, social security number, balances that you can afford or any other personal info they can turn around and use against you.

 

Like everyone else is saying, Princess has to provide proof to collect from you. I would suggest not trusting any more emails on this subject. Many people committing fraud are much more reluctant to use the U.S. Mail for their purposes. Most companies would understand your caution and concern regarding emails.

 

Good luck! You sound like the kind of people most companies would love to have as loyal customers.

[Colo Cruiser]

Why would the OP want to cruise again with Princess after dealing with this garbage? I agree with others that the burden is on Princess to produce a copy of the folio and payments and settlement. What a crappy way to treat your customers. :mad:

 

Oh, it doesn't make a difference to me if it's the "money", how much money, or anything else. This is just wrong on so many counts. Hey Princess, you are buying yourself some great publicity here. Keep it up.

 

WOW!! Calm down.

 

Don't Taze me bro!! :eek:

[MaryPoppinz]

Doesn't the OP need to dispute the charges in writing? Normally, disputing charges only on the phone does not preserve the rights of the consumer. Other posters seem correct in that the simplest thing to do is request Princess to provide a duplicate of the shipboard folio. This request should be included in the written notice of the dispute of the charge.

 

She's being billed by Princess, so the consumer protections that apply to credit card purchases would not be at play here.

 

I learned a very long time ago that whenever somebody tells me "It's the money, not the principle", what they are REALLY saying is "If it was ME, it would be about the money."

[TracieABD]

WOW!! Calm down.

 

Don't Taze me bro!! :eek:

You did not...:rolleyes:

LOL, Keith.

[JLC@SD]

I copied and pasted the EMAIL RECEIVED FROM PRINCESS TODAY:

 

Mr. *****,

I am sending this e-mail hoping to resolve the billing matter of $300.00 for Balcony Dining while onboard the Ruby Princess

last Oct 2009. I have spoken to you in March 2010 on this matter , and I was under the impression that a payment woukd be sent.

You did have a dispute on why the bill was so late coming to you, and I advised that the charge was not added to your folio at the

time of disembarkment. We did receive the statement from the ship in our Valencia office and a bill was sent to you in Jan. 2010. (This was new information to us, not to mention, it never happened!)

Please advise back to me if the bill will be paid, or your explanation why you are disputing the charge.

 

Thank You,

 

*****

Finance Department

Phone 661-753-0579

Ext. 30579

Fax: 661-753-1341

 

We also received two phone calls from them today. The first one we were not home.

My DH disputed two things, the charge and the timing. This email only mentions the timing. Also, we never received anything by mail or phone in Jan 2010.

 

 

 

Tell them to email you a copy of:

 

"the statement from the ship in our Valencia office and the bill was sent to you in Jan. 2010."

....seems it should be easy to settle after you recieve those.....:rolleyes:

[Coral]

First - I have never kept my invoices from Princess for more then a month. So I don't blame you for throwing it away.

 

While a different matter - I went to return something to JCPennys once and didn't have my receipt. They were only going to give me 1/3 of what I paid for the item and I asked about any way around it. They told me to contact my credit card company who would contact them and by doing that, my credit card company was able to get a print out of my receipt (identical) from JC Pennys. In reality - my bank sent me a letter with the receipt saying that it was a valid charge as far as they were concerned (me too - I just wanted the receipt to return the item). So my bank company saw it as a dispute but was able to go to the vendor and get the real receipt from them which allowed me to prove how much I paid and return the item and get full amount back. It only took about 7 days to get this done.

 

Good luck!

[jagoffee]

Billing dispute with Princess - Who's right?

 

You are. Obviously if it is a valid request you need to escalate the issue to managment perhaps in collections? Just keep asking them to send you a copy of the details for your confirmation and review in writing as well. I cannot understand how they can actual do something like this to a good customer. Perhaps an over zealous individual in the collection organization? Let them know that you can see how they may have made a mistake, but that you do not deserve to be threated when they cannot provide any proof. I fear it might be some kind of scam and perhaps you should also tell them that you suspect someone in their collection department is doing something unethical. Maybe Princess has an ethics department for reporting suspected fraud? Good luck.

 

Your story in amazing and disappointing.

[CALMOM]

Mr. *****,

I am sending this e-mail hoping to resolve the billing matter of $300.00 for Balcony Dining while onboard the Ruby Princess

last Oct 2009. I have spoken to you in March 2010 on this matter , and I was under the impression that a payment woukd be sent.

You did have a dispute on why the bill was so late coming to you, and I advised that the charge was not added to your folio at the

time of disembarkment. We did receive the statement from the ship in our Valencia office and a bill was sent to you in Jan. 2010. (This was new information to us, not to mention, it never happened!)

Please advise back to me if the bill will be paid, or your explanation why you are disputing the charge.

 

Thank You,

 

*****

Finance Department

Phone 661-753-0579

Ext. 30579

Fax: 661-753-1341

 

I don't believe this email came from Princess, as there are 3 spelling errors and the wording is incorrect grammar, not to mention, this is not a phone number for Princess. So, if in fact, the OP copied and pasted the actual email, I would say it is a total scam.:rolleyes:

[Cruisin' Chick]

I would call the 800 number, rather than the number listed on this email. When asked for the extension, try typing in the number on the email (I would guess that the internal 661 phone number extensions match the 800 number). See if you get the finance department. But ask to speak to a supervisor and get their name.

 

Another thing you can try is talking to Customer Service (looking on the princess website, it says under contact us:

Post Cruise Questions or Concerns

For any post-cruise questions or concerns, please address your comments to our Customer Relations Department.) Explain you're Elite and you are getting frustrated about being billed for a charge that you paid for while onboard. Maybe someone outside the finance department can help you resolve this.

 

 

I truly hope this gets resolved, but am getting some bad feelings that someone may be trying something here.

[Feelin' Nauti']

As of March 2010, Princess did not have a copy of our shipboard account for that sailing.

 

What proof do they have that you owe this? :cool:

 

I would request an itemized statement to support their claim before paying anything. Period!

 

On your next cruise, I am sure you'll save every receipt. ;)

[caribill]

Where is the detailed final bill given to you onboard?

 

Per the OP in post #1 on this thread :"Now we know we paid this, put we really don't have proof because after a couple of months we tossed the paperwork for the cruise. I NEVER dreamed it would be necessary to keep. "

[broberts]

I don't believe this email came from Princess, as there are 3 spelling errors and the wording is incorrect grammar, not to mention, this is not a phone number for Princess. So, if in fact, the OP copied and pasted the actual email, I would say it is a total scam.:rolleyes:

 

I'm not disagreeing with you regarding the authenticity of the email, but the area code of the phone number is for the same city, Santa Clarita CA, as the Princess corporate office.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

I have been following this with curiosity myself and for the fun of it on dex.com you can do a reverse of a phone number and it comes up as

(661) 753-0579

 

Type: Land Line Location: Santa Clarita, CA

 

It at least it does belong to a number in Santa Clarita, it states the number is unpublished or unavailable. Which is what it shows when you type in a phone number from with in a business. So it could be legit what I think is that Princess needs to be spot checking some of the emails going out to customers because the typing and grammer is not overly professional :rolleyes:

[Pirkko]

That email does read a little strange. I have a friend who was going to Hawaii over Christmas. A week before she left, she got a phone call from the airline and they stated the flight she was on, her seat number and some other info. They said they needed her to change her flight to the next day and she would get the same seat. All they needed was her credit card number. Her daughter called the airline for her and it was a total scam. But you have to wonder, where did they get her phone number, name, flight info, and seat number? You just never know anymore who you can trust.

 

I hope the OP gets this resolved whether it really is Princess or a scam. Please let us know how it turns out and good luck.

[hubofhockey]

WOW!! Calm down.

 

Don't Taze me bro!! :eek:

 

Don't be so sensitive. I just thought your comment about Princess banning the OP from cruising was somewhat ironic. Princess is not the only cruise company out there and most people tend not to do business with companies pursuing legal action against them. ;)

 

If this were a scam, it is some elaborate setup considering the scammer actually knows about some balcony dinner on a cruise. It looks more like a case of a rookie in corporate accounting not balancing billing and collections and coming up with a poor resolution (going after a customer instead of a write off).

[Doug R.]

Honestly, Princess accounting seems to be the most mismanaged department in the company. We've had issues both on the ship, and with FCCs. It's a good thing the rest of their product is fantastic. But this is just one more reason why I will never be convinced that autotips are managed as diligently as we would be led to believe. Move those people into the accounting department!

 

Amen to that. We had the onboard charges charged to the wrong credit card, which we had changed before our cruise. When we discovered the error we were proactive and contacted Princess only to endure 3 months of incompetence and buck passing, followed by six months of utter silence. Meanwhile we were helped by the credit card company who rejected the charge. After six months Princess demanded payment and we then had it charged to the proper card. :rolleyes: The bank that isssued the original card said Princess only needed about 5 minutes of effort to correct the situation.

 

I think the accounting department and customer relations (including the pursers desk) all graduated from Fast Eddie's Charm School and Discount Mail-Order School of Business. :eek:

[Globaliser]

The first thing I would do was make damn sure those contact numbers on the email really belong to Princess.

Finance Department

Phone 661-753-0579

Ext. 30579

Fax: 661-753-1341

It at least it does belong to a number in Santa Clarita, it states the number is unpublished or unavailable.

The main switchboard number for Princess (and P&O) in Santa Clarita is 661 753 0000. The main number for Cunard (co-located) is 661 753 1000. The Princess website cites some numbers in the 661 753 0xxx and 661 753 1xxx series, so the quoted numbers appear to be legitimate.

 

But this means that the OP should be able to find out quite quickly whether the email is legitimate by phoning the published main switchboard number and asking to be put through to the finance department.

 

However, I also find it fishy that Princess seems to be unable to produce a copy of the final onboard invoice, which should match the charge to the credit card. Without that, it's impossible for either party to know that the dinner wasn't charged to the cabin - yet Princess appears to be pretty confident of that.

[phabric]

You would think since everything is on their computer they would be able to send it you.

 

Keep us posted.

[cruisin36]

I have a question....

 

 

Well, it never dawned on me that it wasn't really Princess who was hounding you until I read this -- "disembarkment"? I find it highly suspect that someone working for the cruise line does not know the proper word. Now I wonder.

 

What is the proper word???