How I dispute my credit card charge for the wrong amount

[praveena]

I am desperately looking for advice on my situation.We recently traveled from SFO to Shanghai, China. My husband, I and my daughter had economy class tickets. While checking in, we saw a sign about upgrades to business class. When we asked the airline agent how much it would cost she said $100 per person. It was hard to believe so we asked her a few times and she repeated the same thing. We had trouble understanding her because she didnt speak fluent english. But we she kept saying one hundred even after multiple times of asking we decided to go ahead. Our condition though was that we need the seats together in the same row. She said she cannot confirm that until boarding time. We said we will not go ahead then. She suggested we give her our credit card details and she will charge us only if the seats are together. There was a 5 hour delay to the flight and at boarding time there were a lot of impatient travelers arguing at the gate. They paged us and when we went to the gate they said they could get us seats together and gave us the boarding passes. She asked me to sign the receipt. In all the hurry and tensed about my toddlers safety in the crowd, I didn't pay attention to the receipt because all through I had the $300 ($100 X 3) number in my head. They asked to board immediately. After we settled in the flight and were putting away the boarding passes, we realized there was a receipt behind the passes and it showed $3000. We were shocked and called the flight attendant to complain. Unfortunately even the flight attendant didn't speak good English. It was take off time, so she said we should settle everything with the airline later. Now we are in China and won't get back to the states until about 10 days. I just saw the amount charged to my credit card. The card is a joint card for me and my husband. What are my options here? Since I signed the receipt are all doors closed for me? I will try talking to the airlines but I am worried if they will react unfavorably.Please help

[lorraineb]

I feel sorry for you and the mistake, but I don't think there is anything you can do but explain and hope. The fact is that you did sign the credit card authorization and you took full advantage of the business class flight. You would have had a better case if you had noticed the mistake and moved back to coach as soon as you did explaining to the flight attendants the reason why. By staying in business class the entire time, you greatly weakened your claim.

I would still try, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

[bjl584]

You could probably try to dispute the charge with your credit card company. Tell them that the price was given to you incorrectly by an employee of the airline.

[disneysteve]

I would contact the CC company to let them know you are disputing it so that you don't have to pay that bill and don't get hit with interest or penalties. Then I'd contact the airline. Don't do it by phone. Do everything in writing or email and save copies of everything. Have a paper trail. If you do contact them by phone, log everything - date and time of call, name of person you spoke to, etc. If you don't get it resolved on the first round, escalate it to the corporate office and send copies to the head of the company, VP of customer service, and anyone else you can think of.

[rennigade]

So you saw the charge of $3k when you sat down on the plane...but you didnt move seats?

Like the saying goes, if its too good to be true.........

You cant eat the steak then expect not to pay for it. You can dispute it but its your word against theirs. From what you said you have a receipt that clearly shows $3k with your signature.

Lesson learned...$3k really isnt that much to learn a valuable lesson.

My grandparents just got scammed out of $1500. They were dumb enough to send their "grandson" bail money. A money order to mexico for bail money...and they were told not to tell anyone cause "grandson" didnt want to get in trouble. Granted grandson is 45 years old. Yep, lesson learned!

[disneysteve]

So you saw the charge of $3k when you sat down on the plane...but you didnt move seats?

Like the saying goes, if its too good to be true.........

You cant eat the steak then expect not to pay for it.

I disagree. OP repeatedly asked the cost and was repeatedly told it would be $300 - not $3,000. As soon as she realized the mistake, she tried to bring it to the attention of the crew who didn't speak English. What was she supposed to do at that point? She was already on the plane. Getting up and moving to a different seat wouldn't have changed the fact that the charge had already happened.

I would absolutely contest this.

[Baby_nurse]

The question is, how do you prove the employee quoted 300 versus 3000.

Once the receipt is signed, you've pretty much agreed to paying that charge,

[disneysteve]

The question is, how do you prove the employee quoted 300 versus 3000.

Once the receipt is signed, you've pretty much agreed to paying that charge,

I think you could get a reasonable person on the phone who would see that there is a HUGE difference between a $100 per person upgrade and a $1,000 per person upgrade. I would explain the situation just as it was explained here and make it clear that you didn't realize the error until you had already boarded at which point it was too late to do anything about it, which is true.

I have certainly been overcharged for something in the past and didn't realize it until I got home and reviewed the bill. That didn't stop me from getting the mistake corrected.

[Baby_nurse]

I think you could get a reasonable person on the phone who would see that there is a HUGE difference between a $100 per person upgrade and a $1,000 per person upgrade. I would explain the situation just as it was explained here and make it clear that you didn't realize the error until you had already boarded at which point it was too late to do anything about it, which is true.

I have certainly been overcharged for something in the past and didn't realize it until I got home and reviewed the bill. That didn't stop me from getting the mistake corrected.

But again, how do you prove that the error was on the part of the ticket desk and not the buyer? It's one thing to dispute a price on a piece of merchandise. I just think its going to be much harder when it's a he said/ she said situation. While its certainly worth trying, I have doubts that the OP will be successful. Especially in this day and age of the mobile Internet, everyone can readily check the price differences between coach and business class.

[LuckyRobin]

These sorts of things happen all the time in certain countries. You are given one price, there is a lot of confusion that is often manufactured by pretending they don't speak good enough English, and then while you are distracted you sign. And they know you won't catch it until too late. It's engineered that way. These scams have been going on for the last decade at least. And the credit card companies are very well aware that this happens. Happens in restaurants, too, where you are charged 10 times the cost of a meal if you use your card. And some hotels. The buyer really must beware when travelling to look up the local scams.

I hope your card company can help you.

[snafu]

I hope you'll persist and try to get the CC to assist. If that particular Airline regularly scams passengers it will be a familiar story to MC/VISA/AMEX who have clout while you as an individual have none. Did you note the name of the counter attendant or cabin attendant who can verify your understanding? If you ultimately have to pay the higher fee, console yourself with the fact that didn't have to cope with crowding in the 'cattle car' section.

People who have never attempted boarding at the larger PRC airports, [Shaghai, BJ, or GuangZhou] will never understand the chaos and noise level that you would have encountered.