Posted on 05/31/2024 9:37:10 AM PDT by Red Badger
A Kentucky family’s $15,000 Carnival Cruise vacation they had been planning for a year was canceled just two days before the ship was set to sail after they accidentally shared their booking number online in a case of identity theft.
Tiffany Banks was devastated to learn that her trip aboard the Carnival Celebration ship with her husband and their four kids was canceled without her knowledge the day before the family was going to fly to Florida to leave on the boat.
Banks said in a series of TikTok videos that she had no idea their vacation, for which they had already paid in full, was trashed until she got an email about off-ship excursion cancellations and called to investigate.
A Carnival customer service representative told her that she had canceled her $12,000 reservation for the ship’s largest room — the Excel Presidential Suite — through the online system.
The mom and nurse practitioner said she went into “a full-blown panic” and she and her four kids were all in tears.
“We have nearly $15,000 tied up in for this vacation including excursions. The room itself was I think $12,000 or $13,000, and then we’ve got a few grand tied up in excursions, and actually with almost $2,000 for flights,” she said in a May 12 TikTok video.
Banks said she never canceled the trip and wondered if it was a system glitch.
Carnival said the room they had booked was now reserved by another customer and offered the family two interior rooms — the cheapest on the ship — instead, but the mom did not feel it was an adequate replacement.
Carnival also refused to offer a full refund as its cancellation policy states that no money will be returned within 15 days of the cruise date.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
My Amex would. Especially since they ended up selling the room. In fact, in many states it’s illegal to get paid for the same service twice. It’s fraud.
My wife is an EXCELLENT travel planner and always books in-demand places the day they start taking reservations, often a year out these days. She always finds great places (except I found the Bitterroot River Ranch last year).
She booked us at Chateau Lake Louise and Banff Springs Hotel this September. I think both reservations were made last September.
Never been but I’ve always heard terrific things about Banff.
That sounds like a great trip. Enjoy 👍
“DO NOT EVER PUT PERSONAL INFORMATION ON FACEBOOK.
NO DATES, ADDRESSES, PHONE NUMBERS OR PASSWORDS...................”
...and examine each and every photo you put up very carefully. Have TWO people look at it. If anything is even remotely readable in the photo, someone will try to read it. Think about reflections and shiny objects (even your eyes!). You would not believe the resolution of a modern high end camera, especially with a little bit of AI-aided image processing.
Most, —but not all— websites strip off location information from your uploaded photos. Remove this in order to be sure.
Don’t ever put up “contemporaneous” information divulging your present location.
Yeah, I don’t think she can dispute this on her credit card. Everyone admits it was a legitimate purchase. No fraud was involved when she booked it.
Question: If for some unforeseen reason like illness, and she failed to make the boat, would she still be able to dispute the credit card charge?
No.
“In fact, in many states it’s illegal to get paid for the same service twice. It’s fraud”
Yeah but this is a cruise line that has a refund disclaimer like I’m sure they all do.....also, gotta remember there’s a reason none of ‘em are registered in the U.S.
That’s a more than fair offer by Carnival. The dummy should take it.
And grocery stores have signs up saying not responsible for damage to cars from the shopping cart, but guess what? They are responsible. The sign is just there to keep people from trying to claim damages.
A company policy does NOT supersede the law.
It’s funny all the arm chair lawyers on here.
I did in fact dispute a hotel charge that I made and I cancelled after their policy said I couldn’t.
I got a full refund ;-).
Also she is the victim of fraud here, which just stengthens her case. The cruise line is responsible for validating someone’s identity BEFORE cancelling. Just giving a confirmation # is not verification.
My current wife’s ex-husband cancelled her Airline trip on her. The Airline refunded the ticket since she didn’t make the call.
Dude. Quit messing up this thread with relevant facts and information.
Seriously. It’s a fine FReeper tradition to only read the excerpt and jump to knee jerk conclusions.
lol
What steps did they take to prevent such fraud? You cannot resell space and then keep anything more than the administrative costs of rebooking, because you have in fact lost nothing. An attorney will have a good time with this one.
I’m just tellin’ ya my friend....cruise lines are a different animal.
This lady might get resolution but it’s not gonna be as easy as dealing with a company right here in the US.
Like I said, there’s reasons cruise lines aren’t registered in the US.
Or...your real birthday
“What makes you think the ‘prankster’ isn’t the same person that ended up booking it?.....it’s possible”
That’s what I thought, too.
You got a full refund? Later your wife got a full refund?
And just WHO did the refunding? Not the credit card. It was the hotel. It was the airline.
My point stands. The credit card company is not liable.
About 15 years ago we had a young man as contractor at our house, and he had two little girls.
He told me how he posts their soccer pictures on his MySpace account every week.
I asked him if he was comfortable knowing that everyone could see what his beautiful girls looked like, where they were every week at the same time, that he was there, too, and that the house was empty. (He was a single father; that info was also on MySpace.)
His face went white and he took down all of those posts.
No, the fraud was involved in not providing the service she paid for and selling it to someone else instead. I have some experience in this dealing with credit card companies. They can be merciless against merchants in cases like this. The merchant has no loss except some adminsitrative inconvenience because they are negligent regarding fraud prevention.
“And grocery stores have signs up saying not responsible for damage to cars from the shopping cart, but guess what? They are responsible. The sign is just there to keep people from trying to claim damages.”
INNCORECT!
“No, the fraud was involved in not providing the service she paid for “
That was not the fraud.
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