=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/c/a/2006/07/16/TRGNKJTM5Q= 1.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, July 16, 2006 (SF Chronicle) The online way to strike back at unresponsive travel companies Ed Perkins When you have a complaint with a travel supplier, you obviously take it = up first with that supplier. Sadly, in my experience, all too many suppliers stonewall your complaint -- and all too often compound the insult by sending a totally unresponsive reply ending with, "We're looking forward to serving you again soon." When that happens, your options are limited. You can: -- Write your experience off as another lesson learned the hard way and get on with your life. -- Try to enlist the support of any organizations that might help you --= a government agency (state attorney general, consumer protection agency), a trade organization (Better Business Bureau, American Society of Travel Agents) or a media outlet with an ombudsman or consumer function. Do as much as you can to give the supplier a black eye. -- Take the supplier to court -- small claims or higher, depending on what's involved. I've written many columns about how to complain effectively, often recommending court action as the only practical course. This column is about the other alternative -- giving a supplier a black eye -- and how you can easily do it online, via gripe sites. Several Web sites position themselves as places where consumers can post complaints. Although most cover a wide range of consumer markets, travel figures prominently in each -- no doubt paralleling disproportionate consumer problems with travel suppliers. Many sites post more general consumer reviews of travel suppliers, but these sites focus on problems: Complaints.com (www.complaints.com) appears to be one of the larger complaint sites, with lots of travel listings, and is easily searched. Consumer Affairs (www.consumeraffairs.com) seems to have fewer travel listings, but is also easily searched. My 3 Cents (www.my3cents.com) is easily searched and offers outstanding links to other useful sites. Ripoff Report (www.ripoffreport.com) is easily searched but has fewer travel postings than some of the others. Squeaky Wheel (www.thesqueakywheel.com) promises aggressive follow-up to complaints ("We get refunds"), including e-mailing the named supplier every time someone reads a complaint, but it lists comparatively few travel complaints and has limited search capabilities. In general, these and other complaint sites (1) post complaints, (2) off= er general guidelines about where to complain and how to do it, and (3) provide links, snail-mail addresses, and even names for places and people where you might want to send messages: suppliers, government agencies and such. Some gripe sites, created by disgruntled customers or even employees, complain about individual travel suppliers. Among them (most of the targets are obvious): www.untied.com, www.northworstair.com, www.shameonexpedia.com, www.shameonorbitz.com and www.woogone.com (focused on WooGo, a vacation rental agency). A diligent search would probably unearth more of the same. There's a good bit of venting and bloviating on some of these sites -- so much that you might have a tough time figuring out exactly what went wrong. It's not exactly a gripe site, but the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) does collect complaints about airlines (e-mail airconsumer@xxxxxxx); the press often picks up on the agency's reported complaint "scores." Except in a few limited cases, DOT does not pursue individual consumers' case, and it issues no comparable reports for any other type of travel service. Do gripe sites work? I really don't know. According to industry conventional wisdom, some major suppliers do monitor gripe sites -- to sic their lawyers on anything libelous, if nothing else. I've never heard of any real success stories, however, where someone actually got some money back through a posted gripe or got the supplier to change its practices. Meanwhile, if you're trying to get a fix on a supplier you don't know, by all means check it out on one or two of the gripe sites. And if you have a problem a supplier won't resolve, list it on all of them. E-mail syndicated author Ed Perkins at eperkins@xxxxxxxxx --------------= -------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle