Travel plan idea blog

Priceline.com customer service and fraud protection off to a very weak start

Yesterday I wrote about an apparent case of fraud involving fake reservations that were emailed to me (but were in my father's name) and I alerted Priceline.com via the form on their website.

I labeled the problem fraud, but the reply I got was from customer service, airline@cs.priceline.com. It was an entirely inadequate form letter that didn't address the fraud issue at all.

Dear Mr. Trotta,

Thank you for taking the time to send us an e-mail. We understand that
you feel that you did not make any reservation for a trip with Priceline
and it is fraudulent e-mail.

Our records indicate that you are neither an authorized contact nor a
reservation holder on the request.

In order to maintain the security of our customer records, you will need
to provide at least two of the following pieces of information before we
can answer specific questions regarding this request.

- Email address used to submit a request
- Last 4 digits of the credit/debit card used to place the request

If you can provide this information, we will address any specific
questions about the request; otherwise we will only be able to answer
general questions.

We thank you for understanding the security measures we have instituted
for your protection.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,

Vimesh A.
Customer Service Specialist

Now how am I suppose to produce the email address used to submit the request or the last 4 digits of the credit/debit card used to place the request if I didn't place the request?

I suppose we have come to expect horrible customer service and supreme idiocy from large corporations like priceline.com but this is a bit crazy.

Now I have to try to track down a phone number for Priceline because something tells me that making myself understood by email will be too time consuming while I am on vacation.

Posted by James Trotta at July 28, 2007 1:24 PM | TrackBack