A Coquitlam woman is upset after being billed for her cancelled B.C. Ferries sailing, and frustrated at how difficult it has been trying to get the issue resolved.
Puja Kashyap was told her $96.60 reservation charge for a vehicle and three passengers would be automatically refunded after an 8:10 p.m. sailing from Departure Bay in Nanaimo to Horseshoe Bay on May 27 was cancelled.
Instead, she got an invoice dated June 4 saying she would be charged the full amount because she was a no-show.
“It’s annoying, disturbing, all the rest of it,” Kashyap said.
A call to the 1-888 customer service number printed on the invoice led nowhere, she said.
When she and her companions arrived at Departure Bay, the agent in the booth was very helpful, Kashyap said, and assured them of an automatic reversal of the charge on her credit card.
Satisfied with that, the group followed the agent’s advice and hurried to Duke Point to catch a ferry there so two out-of-province visitors could make their flight home the next day.
“We were the second-last car on that ferry,” Kashyap said. “That was a relief.
“Where were five people going to find accommodation late at night? It was an extremely stressful situation, anyway.”
The group paid $136.40, sailed back to the Lower Mainland, and the visitors got to the airport in plenty of time the next day.
The company said Kashyap’s situation was the result of them choosing to travel to Duke Point instead of waiting for a later sailing from Departure Bay.
“Our ‘key accounts’ team rebooked the customer for the later sailing (to Horseshoe Bay) and sent the customer a notification of the change, however the customer decided to travel from Duke Point to Tsawwassen instead,” Deborah Marshall, executive-director of public affairs with B.C. Ferries, said in an email.
“The unused booking was then a ‘no show’. The customer is aware that we are processing their refund. We certainly apologize for any inconvenience.”
Kashyap’s group had been told their original sailing had been cancelled because the chief engineer hadn’t shown up, one of a handful of cancelled sailings recently as B.C. Ferries struggles to restaff after COVID.
B.C. Ferries has hired about 850 people so far, Marshall said, 500 of which are seasonal through Labour Day.
“We still have to hire about another 150 employees,” she said. “There may be isolated incidents where we have to cancel sailings due to staffing shortages.
“Our goal is to avoid service disruptions wherever we can, to give our customers as much notice as possible as soon as they become known, and to minimize the impact these disruptions have on the travelling public.”
The percentage of sailings cancelled is extremely low, she added, considering all the sailings that proceed as scheduled.
“On [June 10] for example, we cancelled four sailings due to staffing issues, however we sailed about 475 other sailings.”
Kashyap said the charge and the ensuing futility of trying to reach someone to sort it out has shaken her confidence in the system’s integrity.
“That’s actually more disturbing because when it’s a quasi-government place and you can’t reach anybody, that’s what got me frustrated.
“I can understand them saying, ‘Oh, this was an oversight,’ or, ‘The process takes three weeks.’ Whatever. I’ll back that.
“But if you turn around and say, ‘There’s nobody to speak to and I have no idea what’s happening,’ what am I to do?”
B.C. Ferries’ Marshall said in addition to the company’s 1-888 number, customers can direct-message them on social media.
