My wife and I had a bad customer experience when we booked a BigBus (Hopon Hopoff bus) trip in London early this month.
I wrote to BigBus about the loss of our tickets which cost us 35 pounds each.
I wrote: “I am writing to you about my recent transaction with you about the tickets we purchased at Green Park on August 1st. I have already sent you a message regarding this matter and have yet to receive a response. Reiterating: Apparently, we must have lost the tickets even though we don’t think we received them. We only have a valid receipt and a void receipt. After travelling from Green Park to the Tower of London we were prevented from going on the boat trip and using the remainder of our 24-hour pass because we did not have valid tickets. We went back to Green Park and spoke to the same operator who sold us the tickets. We were told to come back next morning which we did and after speaking to Craig (the boss of the operation) we were told that that there was no recourse, other than to email BigBus. I am awaiting your response.”
At last I received a response
Dear Robert,
I’m afraid if the tickets were issued and you subsequently mislaid them there is not a lot we can do. However, you do mention having a valid receipt and a void receipt. I’m not sure exactly what you are referring to so if you can send a photo of those through to me I am happy to take a look as that may help shed some light on things.
Many thanks,
Cath
At last they see the light I thought:
I sent off the receipt and a record of the bank transaction.
But alas!
Dear Robert,
Thanks for that. If you paid for your tickets by credit / debit card you would have been issued with yellow tickets along with the attached receipt. Those tickets would be the ones you would need to present every time you boarded the bus or river cruise. Unfortunately company policy dictates that we do not offer replacements for lost tickets so I’m afraid there is not really anything we can do on this occasion.
Apologies if this is not the answer you were looking for. If I can be of any further help or assistance please do not hesitate to let me know.
Kind regards,
Cath
What a waste of time! So much for company policy and customer service. There are two BigBus services in London so I had better let you know which one to steer clear of - The one with the Big Ben logo and website: bigbustours.com.
Robert Edmonds
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Hi Rob.
If you paid for the tickets by credit card and you didn’t get to use them, I’d recommend applying via your bank for a credit card charge back. You can also file a complaint with England Trading Standards.
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Hi Jodi,
Thank you for your response and suggestion. We had a couple of hours on the BigBus but we paid for 24 hour passes so I’m not sure if I am within my rights to claim a credit card charge back. I’ll follow up with England Trading Standards, in the meantime.
Hi Jodi
I went through the process of submitting an online complaint with England Trading Standards but I don’t think it went through as I did not receive a confirmation message. It seems like a service that only services UK consumers or those in the UK.
That’s interesting, I’ll check with our sister organisation Which?, and ask them what the best process for filing a complaint is.
I seem to be missing something here. You bought and used a ticket for the BigBus for 2 hours. Then you lost your ticket and now expect a refund of the purchase price for the 22 hours of the 24 hours for which you paid but didn’t use.
Please explain how this is the responsibility of the bus company as I don’t understand how it is. You did receive your tickets (you admit to using them so you must have had them) then you lost/misplaced them. Surely even in Australia if you bought then lost a daily bus ticket as a tourist you would also not be reimbursed especially as there would be no record of how much you actually used (or not). I fail to understand your complaint. Sorry.
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Thanks for for your post. I’ll try and clarify the issue for you. My wife and I maintained that we never received the tickets; only the receipt for the tickets. The company maintains that I must have received the tickets as they come automatically with the receipt. However, the receipt had no attached ticket. I never used tickets to board the bus as we were asked to sit on a an out of service bus while we waited for the next tour bus. We transferred to the tour bus without having to show tickets.
But, even if we had lost the tickets it is pretty poor company policy and customer relations that doesn’t allow for some kind of restitution. As one of the company operators told us, BigBus is not a small company; they are worldwide and that we should not let the matter rest or accept what happened.
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That you had a ‘valid’ credit card receipt, with a total amounting to two 24 hour tickets purchased with that day’s date on it, should have been enough documentation for the company to re-issue tickets for the remaining time left in the 24 hours when you returned to the ticket issuer on the day. Regardless of whether the tickets were lost or not.
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