Refunds Series 27, Episode 23

The Gorse Fox has actually lost count of the number of interactions he has attempted with Virgin regarding the refund for our Jamaica trip. It occurred to him that it is now six weeks since he chose to have a refund rather than rely on the voucher he was offered. In that time he has sent them several messages and just received stock answers. He hadn't even had confirmation that his refund was somewhere in their queue.

Enough was enough. It was time to at least get some acknowledgement.

He started:

"It is now a biblical 40 days and 40 nights since you contacted me regarding my holiday (ref:xxxxxxx). Your email included a voucher, but I chose to take a full refund and filled in the online form accordingly. The emails said "We'll call you back to process the cancellation and organise your refund." but I still have not heard anything."

He received the usual canned answer.

He switched from iMessage to WhatsApp:

"On April 28th you cancelled my holiday xxxxxxx and I requested a refund. It is now 6 weeks and I haven't even received an acknowledgement that this is in process. If I do not hear from you I will have to initiate a chargeback on my credit card."

He received the canned response almost immediately, but was prepared for this, and volleyed back:

"A canned response is not acceptable. I want a clear acknowledgement that my refund is in process."

Lo and behold! The bots obviously passed this on to a human and the Gorse Fox got a response. 

"Hi I can see from our system that a refund has been requested for you, at this time I cannot give you an exact date when this will be with you. As we are dealing with and exceptionally … difficult times… longer than usual… blah blah"

Is the Gorse Fox happy? No. But he does, at least, have an acknowledgement that his refund is in their system.