Slashdot Mirror
Angry Customer Buys Promoted Tweets To Bash British Airways
An anonymous reader writes "After the airline lost his father's luggage (and presumably was less than helpful in resolving the issue), one man decided to use Twitter's self-serve ad platform to issue a warning to fellow travelers in the New York and UK markets. The tweets have gotten the attention not only of media outlets, but also of fellow airlines. A JetBlue executive even retweeted it. While companies use the platform to target customers, it's interesting to see it being turned around."
because of this one tweet. it opened my mind to how evil this company is burning customers' luggage for the fun of it
thank you thank you thank you
Think about this, BA did not respond to this paid & highly public tweet until 4 hours later. If they are that bad at dealing with publicity, I imagine their customer service on a daily (semi-private) basis must be 10 times worse.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
But is it libel if it's true?
Prove it. In court. Under absurd amounts of cross-examination conducted by an army of lawyers.
Oh, and court cases take time, time which cuts into you earning money, time which can be trivially manipulated by lawyers familiar with gaming the system.
But maybe it's true after all! Once you're long since bankrupt, maybe someone will care!
every airline loses luggage and has rules on how much they will reimburse you
Yes, but some airlines/airports lose luggage more often than others. And some airlines are more helpful than others when they do lose the luggage.
That doesn't mean that some companies aren't so egregiously bad at customer service that you wouldn't walk away from doing business with them.
In my experience, United Airlines is shit, don't care if they're shit, will tell you point blank you shouldn't expect anything but shit, and would you like some more shit?
When a company ignores you, blows you off, or does absolutely nothing about your complaints, I think something like this is brilliant.
Sending a very public "fuck you" is sometimes the only recourse you have for companies who have lousy service. If they're going to act like "too bad, we don't care" -- pointing that out for all to see isn't such a bad idea.
I've never dealt with BA, but I've certainly encountered companies whose customer service is so terrible as to make you think they're doing it on purpose. And those companies deserve a little public shaming sometimes.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Indeed, according to Wikipedia:
I'm sure the law is more complicated than that (and Wikipedia isn't the greatest source in the world) but it could get hairy for the guy.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Don't ask for legal advice on Slashdot. Their service is horrendous.
http://simpliflying.com/2013/promoted-tweet-against-british-airways-airline-customer-service/
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
So what? They all do it so it's ok? What's your point? They deserve every bit of bad press for losing luggage.
there are pretty clear standards for libel
even if you can't afford a lawyer, its not that hard to prepare for an initial hearing and ask for summary judgement for it to be dismissed. of course that would mean that you tried to go through BA to find your luggage and they failed and didn't compensate you and whatever.
In the early 2000s I had a two Sprint phones on a family plan. For a year, I checked our usage almost daily on their website. One day, it stopped working. The first-line idiot said that it still worked the same way it did when he was hired 6 months ago. I asked him whether he thought I was crazy and he said, "Well, I guess I don't know." I spoke to his manager - same line: you have never been able to do this from our website. Either guy could have at least pretended to believe me, but that's customer service gone right and they were all about getting it wrong. How hard could a bug report be? I cancelled my service on the spot.
Had I been able to buy a Tweet at the time, I might have. Complete incompetence.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Au contraire...
I've found that I get great service on Slashdot for legal questions. You can ask anything and get lots of different answers in minutes. None of these people are actual lawyers but that doesn't stop them from expounding at length (as if they were getting paid by the hour) about any subject. The usual barriers of accounting for different laws in different jurisdictions are never a problem here. You can get legal advice for any country just by extrapolating answers from the five or ten countries represented in the typical answer set.
Best of all, it's free and open source!
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
They might lose luggage more if it results in others paying to promote their brand name! Folks down the road won't remember why BA is in the forefront of their subconscious when they go to purchase tickets... Smart of Jet Blue to try to get in on the attention too.
This is one of the big problems with trying to warn folks off bad service, you really need to promote every company save the one you aren't a fan of or it just ends up good for them in the long run.
All PR is good PR is only something said when there's bad press by people who want to keep their jobs. And it isn't true. If it were everyone on /. would love Microsoft.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Airlines have been handling luggage for a very long time, you would think they would have this figured out by now.
Anecdote: I flew Delta quite a bit some years ago and lived about 2 hours/90 miles away from the airport. They would routinely misplace my luggage (never lost it, thankfully) and they had to have somebody drive my bag to my house when they found it. This happened a dozen times. It must have cost them about the price of my ticket for each delivery.
I can only assume that it was because of the luggage missing connecting flights, but most of the time I had at least an hour layover. It just seems like they could make this work
"every airline loses luggage and has rules on how much they will reimburse you"
Incidentally, while airline staff will, at times, attempt to lowball you, they can sometimes be...encouraged... to be more helpful by the implication(ideally true) that you are familiar with the 'The Warsaw convention (as amended by the Hague and Montreal protocols)' if your dispute involves luggage, 'Regulation 261/2004' if your dispute involves flight delays, being bumped, etc. and falls under EU jurisdiction. Trying the same with 'Rule 240' in the US is just a bluff these days, though it sometimes works; but a familiarity with the airline's "Contract of carriage" isn't...
"Remember: every member of your 'target audience' also owns a broadcasting station. These 'targets' can shoot back."
-- Michael Rathbun to advertisers, in n.a.n-a.e
The way Lufthansa handled my wife's lost luggage during her recent trip to Europe was absolutely pitiful. The staff were utterly horrible, and despite promises that she would be reimbursed for everything she had to replace during the 11 days the luggage was missing (on a 15 day trip), we are still waiting for reimbursement 2 months later, having even taken everything to the nearest Lufthansa office in another state for verification. Their call centre staff are ridiculously rude - I will grant that their English is better than my German, but to then have to chase them repeatedly and take all the items plus receipts on an interstate trip at our own expense and even then not be reimbursed is just terrible.
... wait, what?
The best explanation I have seen is that Ryanair is an experiment to see what people will do for cheap plane tickets.
Yes, but some airlines/airports lose luggage more often than others. And some airlines are more helpful than others when they do lose the luggage.
And some customers are real douchebags who take affront at everything and are unreasonable no matter how hard the agent is trying to help.
Bottom line is - we don't know where the line is in this case. This guy may have a completely legitimate grievance, or he could be raising hell because BA wouldn't compensate him $500 a bag or give him 10,000 free travel miles. We just don't know.
#DeleteChrome
The "lost" bag was found and is due to be delivered... Does this mean that they didn't start looking for it until the Tweet showed up?
Here's a good one. Delta at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta allowed me to take my desktop PC as a carry on (confirmed by phone and at airport) to Venezuela. On the way back home I was informed despite significant protest that I was not allowed to carry it on. They began shrouding it in plastic wrap, being kind enough to give it a little extra before it got tossed in with the rest of the luggage. My mouth was an O of horror as you can imagine.
When I picked up my desktop from the luggage belt in Atlanta it sounded like a piñata. I removed the side panel and--I kid you not--the RAM, video card and FUCKING HARD DRIVE were completely unseated. I can't imagine the physics that resulted in the hard drive coming out.
So yeah, airline baggage handling is awesome. Oh, and the computer still worked after reassembly.
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
That doesn't mean that some companies aren't so egregiously bad at customer service that you wouldn't walk away from doing business with them.
Exactly. The one thing you can always do is vote with your money.
When the german Bahn AG (train company) was stupid to me about a 40ÂâÂdispute, I told them that in my business position I control a couple thousand Euros in travel budget going their way - or not. They blew me off, I told my secretary to always check alternatives and book them if they're the same or slightly more expensive from now on.
When O2 was stupid to me about my (rather small) mobile contract, I told them they could be nice to me or I'd cancel my much larger phone and DSL contracts as well. They didn't listen, so I move all my business elsewhere. When I got the usualy retention call, I told them why.
It is unlikely that your move will get as much attention and most likely it'll all get lost at the customer service level. I used #o2sucks on plenty of my FB postings while the above crap was going down, but I don't think it got very much attention.
But someone has to start. And if you move your business away from the crap companies, they won't even notice. But if a thousand people like you do it, they'll start to notice. And if ten or a hundred thousand do it, they just might smarten up. And if they don't, they might go belly up and good riddance. But someone has to start, so be that someone.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
For the same reason US copyright law is deemed enforceable everywhere else on the planet: fuck you, that's why.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
The tweet shown with TFA simply says "Don't fly with British Airways. Their customer service is horrendous".
Not only is this entirely plausible, on the basis of anecdotal evidence, but any attempt to sue him for libel for such an innocuous comment would be doomed to ignominious failure.
He is perfectly at liberty to express his dissatisfaction with their service. If BA doesn't like it, they can always try pulling up their game.
And for what it's worth, a shitlist is as just as useful as a recommendation. As every corporation knows, a satisfied customer might tell a couple of people, but a dissatisfied customer will tell at least ten.
I used to maintain a shitlist (LG electronics goods are at the top), but now I check reviews before I buy. I'll sometimes accept one negative review in 10 as an outlier, but 3 or more is usually enough of a flag to tell me to look elsewhere.
Yes, but some airlines/airports lose luggage more often than others. And some airlines are more helpful than others when they do lose the luggage.
And some customers are real douchebags who take affront at everything and are unreasonable no matter how hard the agent is trying to help.
Bottom line is - we don't know where the line is in this case. This guy may have a completely legitimate grievance, or he could be raising hell because BA wouldn't compensate him $500 a bag or give him 10,000 free travel miles. We just don't know.
I RTFA'd.
The tweet said "dont fly @BritishAirways their customer service is horrendous" which is a valid opinion and very neutrally worded (and given my personal experiences with BA, entirely true, I swear they're run by angry Scottish grandmothers). Hard to tell what his grievance is here. This is a pretty big non-event. Guy buys tweet, guy posts generic message, goes viral. I guess it's a slow news day.
But I completely agree with your point, some people are utter tosspots when dealing with airlines (or anyone really). I've had two significant problems with airlines, both were sorted out within 20 mintues by me simply explaining my predicament to the airline rep in a calm and polite manner. When you're nice, people are more likely to help you.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I've been told that theft and wilful damage to luggage is not a rare thing in that industry.
I personally know 9 professional musicians who have had musical instruments smashed or seriously damaged by Qantas, and here's another one that happened just a few days ago.
But someone has to start. And if you move your business away from the crap companies, they won't even notice. But if a thousand people like you do it, they'll start to notice. And if ten or a hundred thousand do it, they just might smarten up. And if they don't, they might go belly up and good riddance. But someone has to start, so be that someone.
Brought Arlo Guthrie to mind:
You know, if one person, just one person does it, they may think he's really sick and they won't take him.
And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out.
They may think it's an organization.
And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out.
And friends they may think it's a movement.
Most likely it's not the airline that handles your luggage but a local (unionized) airport service. They're typically manned by ex-cons and others that for some reason can't get anything else at minimum wage. Then there are their friends over at DHS that screen the luggage with very sticky fingers. Try leaving jewelry in your luggage, you've got pretty much 50% chance that it will disappear. My friend used to work at DHL, those people would simply come pick up TV's from the DHL loading area and drive away, they gave the guards their cut, usually a bottle of something and it would simply remain unpunished.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Trouble is, far too many large companies are so arrogant, they stick to their "Fuck You!" line until their business goes to the wall.
Yes.
I fail to see the problem. A company like that should go out of business. If it happened more often, the surviving companies would be more customer-friendly, because the other ones are all done.
Frankly, we have too many small companies failing and way, way too few large ones.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Traveling from New York to Hungary, I have had baggage delayed twice. American Airlines had a special car drive the bags 2 hours to my location the next day, and gave a $100 reimbursement for emergency replacement of items for that missing day.
British Airways is another story. The bags hadn't arrived in Vienna when we arrived. The whereabouts were unknown, but the next day they showed up at the airport. We couldn't communicate with the airport baggage handlers directly to give them our address; we needed to fill out a form with BA and they would telex -- TELEX -- the information to the airport. Then, we would need to wait for a phone call between working hours to give them directions how to reach our address. Every day, when the phone call never arrived, we would call BA back, and discover that the information was garbled--that an address in Hungary isn't a local phone number, that it needs an international country code, that we are not at our origin since we left it via airplane so there is no point in calling it. After 3 days, the information was allegedly straightened out. From that point, there was no longer a reason for them not to call us. Since there was still no way to contact the airport, we had no choice but to call BA every few hours and plead with them to get the airport to call us. All they did was tell us they sent these pleas via telex, and it was a one-way communication so there was no way to receive a direct response. They could not or would not give us a phone number directly to the people they were sending the telexes to. We sent messages to BA customer service headquarters, since the BA staff in Vienna were not helping. Their customer service never responded, not even with an automated message.
After a week of no clothing, our own deodorant, or toothbrushes, we looked up the address of the airport on the web and tracked down a working phone number for the baggage handlers. They delivered the bag the next day, though with reluctance over the distance and the country border. We never did hear from BA customer service, and we never got a cent for the inconvenience, because we needed receipts for our items in order to get any money.
Just fuck them. I understand that the company was at the mercy of Austria's sadistic concept of customer service, but the organization should still be held responsible for those it hires or contracts. For contrast, I once complained to AA when the TV in my seat wasn't working on an international flight, and I got a $100 voucher (which I never used). No airline is perfect, but there is an expectation on customer service in fixing problems that is lacking with BA.