Warren Farber and his partner Phyllis Bengal planned a trip from New Jersey to California to help his daughter and her wife with their new house.
In June, he bought two roundtrip tickets on Alaska Airlines from Priceline.com. The outgoing flight would depart from Newark International Airport on Aug. 1.
Including insurance, the price was $2,016.35 for the two tickets.
The trip out to the West Coast was without incident, and after a couple of nice days with their family, they checked in online for their return flight.
“We were told the flight had been cancelled,” Farber said.
They were given options. They could have taken a red eye to Seattle, and then the next day, another red eye from Seattle to Newark. Or, they could get a refund for the cancelled flight and then make their own arrangements to get back home.
They opted for the refund and found a better flight home, even though it cost more: $1,136.96 for the two tickets.
“Alaska immediately refunded the baggage fees as this was paid directly to them,” Farber said. “I followed up with Alaska within the next few days and was advised that they did in fact reimburse the cost of the return flight to the purchaser of the ticket.”
Farber figured that refund went to Priceline.
Alaska gave him the last four digits of a credit card to which the refund was made, and he started calling Priceline. He was given a reference number, but that was about it.
“All calls take about 20 to 30 minutes and always result in the representative saying that someone from `accounting’ will call back once it is confirmed that reimbursement has been received by `our partner’ from Alaska Airlines,” Farber said. “They decline to tell me who their partner is in order for me to call directly.”
“They always say they will call me back with information. The call never comes,” he said
It’s now been more than five months since the flight was cancelled, and Farber said didn’t know what else to do.
He asked Bamboozled for help.
RELATED: He booked travel but he was tricked. Don’t let it happen to you.
We asked Priceline to review Farber’s account, and when we eventually reached the correct representative — more on that in a moment — we had good news.
Priceline said it was refunding his money and it would reach out to Farber directly. We asked what took so long, but we didn’t receive a response.
Farber never got a call, but he did receive a refund of $721.33 to his credit card.
“I had all but given up trying to get Priceline to respond,” Farber said. “I’ve learned my lesson. I will never use Priceline again. It’s just not worth the hassle if something goes wrong.”
Warren Farber (middle) and Phyllis Bengal (right) help Farber’s daughter Rachel (on the ladder) and her wife Emily (left) move into their new home. (Courtesy Warren Farber)Courtesy Warren Farber
BAMBOOZLED, BEHIND THE SCENES
It’s rare that we struggle to reach the right contact at a company to help resolve a consumer problem. For more than a week, no one at Priceline or its parent company Booking Holdings responded to email, phone calls or messages on LinkedIn about Farber’s case.
It turns out the person we needed to reach was out of the office — heck, everyone deserves holidays, personal time and vacation days — but we didn’t know it at the time.
So, frustrated, we went to social media. On X, formerly known as Twitter, we posted several messages directly to Priceline and Booking Holdings. Three separate people claiming to represent Priceline responded, asking for us to send all the details in a private message.
But they all appeared to be impersonators or scammers.
They asked us to send the customer’s information, including a birth date (red flag, anyone?) and a number for the encrypted texting app WhatsApp (red flag No. 2).
Not so fast. Wanting to confirm their identities, we requested they each send us an email so we could communicate that way. Only one did. It came from an email address that appeared to use the Priceline name, but it was misspelled. Obviously, a fake.
It was also obvious how an upset traveler desperate for help could easily make the mistake and share personal information with a bad actor.
Fraudsters abound. Everywhere. Keep your guard up, Jersey.
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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com. Follow her on X at @KPMueller.
