AIRBORN DIRECT - Avoid this company at all costs!

Hi there,

I experienced Airborn Direct and their lies on Friday last week. I am now in a situation where I'm desperate to get my money back but don't know what to do for the best. Having been through your own terrible experience I thought that you might be able to help in mine?!

Dave

Wow that was a quick response!
I wish I had seen yours and other peoples warnings before last week! I'm surprised that the company is still operating.
I spoke to the company on Friday. A guy called Justin quoted me a price higher than that advertised on the net but after thinking about it for a while I decided to go ahead with it. He tried to take payment off my card but said it had failed, he said this could be because the bank sometimes puts a limit of £200.00 on unusual transactions. I rang the bank but discovered he had actually taken £300.00 from my account, £200.00 and then £100.00. I rang him back and he lied about what he had said in the previous conversation. He also then lied some more quoting me a new higher price for the holiday.

I'm really stressed. I don't trust them in the slightest now with anything else. Ideally I'd just like my money back. Someone at the bank said he would get the money back for me straight away but I have since spoken to two other people who said that he was wrong to do that and I couldnt do it unless they hadnt provided the services?!

Trading Standards have told me to write a letter requesting firm dates for issue of ticjets etc but I just want out! I don;t know what to do. ANy help you can give would be much appreciated. Thank you!

Thanks for your advice. I'll do that and see what happens. I wish there was more we could do to prevent this from happening to further people.

Oh how I wish I'd found this site earlier. I've just had the most horrendous experience with airborn direct and it lasted a whole week. I rang last week to ask why our flight tickets had not arrived as we fly out to Corfu on 03/09/10 and we were getting quite worried, I was informed they had been cancelled at our request I was devastated and asked how this could have happened, it seems because I had asked by e.mail if I could cancel my ticket because my job was soon to finish I was told on top of our deposit of £240.36p I would have to pay another £112.91p to cancel so I declined and said I did not want to cancel, they e.mailed me and confirmed that our bookings had definately not been cancelled.I telephoned them at the beginning of June and they confirmed again that everything was ok and took the remainder of our flight money £309.64p, so we thought everything was ok. I have since been on the phone to both airborn direct and thomsons constantly during the week eventually after much distress on my part they agreed to book us on a flight from Gatwick as we originally were going from Norwich airport close to where we live with less hassle as I am 70 and just retired from care work and my husband is 73. They asked could we get ourselves down to Gatwick and we said no as we couldn't afford any more money so they booked us on the bus from Norwich to Gatwick. I have kept all details and e.mails I received from airborn as we intend to seek advice when we return from holiday ( if we get there). I asked airborn about a refund and they informed me it cost them money they were out of pocket, but they have also tried to put all the blame onto us. Thomsons were so helpful and if we ever get another holiday I would certainly book direct with them. We won't be touching Airborn Direct ever again.

Hi mikeyc77,

Sorry to hear about your experience.

I was wondering if you have the name of the Managing Director you wrote to? I myself have a letter of complaint about their service ready to be sent but not sure who is best to address it to..

Thank you

Like many others, I wish I had read the forum before dealing with this crowd.

A mate and I decided to spend a few days in Berlin, googled cheapest flights and Airborn popped up. The salesman there was a guy called Paul Pritchard. Price wise they were the best and I have no probs with easyjet; I could have gone direct but find the easyjet site a bit complicated.
So as to avoid multi site purchasing I said if they could match my parking quote and the price from booking.com for the hotel they could have the complete deal; I thought it would make it easier. Ha ha.
They agreed to match the booking.com price of £337 for a twin room with a view at the Parkhotel in Berlin. It was only at the very end of the conversation with Pritchard I found they were charging me £18 for a bond. This had never been mentioned in the quotation process, but £9 each was no big deal for the ease of it all. Ha ha.
When the confirmation came in the hotel was with getabed.co.uk and said only standard double with a request for a twin, no mention of 'with a view'
I have since had probably 10 or more e mail exchanges with Airborn about this; the lack of understanding from their staff, maybe it is just obstinacy - the one I have dealt with is Molly Thompson - or the ability to answering a simple question is staggering.
Seemingly they have transcripts of calls made to them, and it seems they have referred to my original call as they have gone so far as to instruct getabed to change the reservation to twin beds - my mate and I are good pals but we have no wish to sleep together, but no movement on the view issue.
The upgrade for a panoramic view over Berlin is 10 Euros per night which won't break the bank but it is the principle of the thing that bugs me.
Having read other comments on this and Martin Lewis's forum I have e mailed Ms Sam Irvine, sent a registered to Jeffrey Fowler who I believe is the MD asking for my order to be made good, or send me £43 to cover the upgrade costs. So far no news, but I have the time and the inclination to take them to the small claims courts if necessary.

My warning to other punters or potential customers - beware, this crowd (not getabed, they seem OK and understand, and are only following an order from Airborn)are not to be trusted.

In connection with my write up about 3 weeks ago about with this company, my dispute has been resolved, insofar as they have agreed to credit my debit card with the disputed amount - 50 euros.

Following an earlier blog, I e-mailed MS Sam Irvine with a copy of my recorded letter to their MD, I think Mr J Fowler, saying unless it was resolved I would take it to the Small Claims court, and obviously on receipt of this they looked further into my dispute and I got a result.

So, persistence pays off, and Ms Irvine seems to be the only person there who has any influence in resolving disputes, or is more attuned to customer relations than the other admin staff whose sole role seems to be obfuscation and delay.

Neil Woodley

If anyone wants the contact details for the MD J G Fowler let me know - I have them - and other details concerning this company.........

I've heard nothing about these guys.

Then you have nothing to worry about..

I wished I had looked at the comments on Airborn Direct before booking as well. I have not received my tickets yet - like you I was told my flights were with Air UK but was not given any flight numbers. They also took 366.00 off my debit card instead of the agreed price of 342.00.

I rang them to ask where my tickets were and they said they would be sent out in the next few days. Since then, we have been away for a week and still no tickets! Whilst we were away, I received an email saying that they had despatched the tickets on 25 May and could I verify whether I had received them. They had also left two messages on my answerphone saying that the tickets had been returned to them by Royal Mail due to the address being incomplete! I have tried to phone them ever since but just cannot get through to anyone. I have since replied to the email saying:

Dear Molly

We have been away on holiday and only came back today.

During our absence, we have received two answerphone message from one of your colleagues saying that our tickets have been returned to you by Royal Mail due to an incomplete address. Your colleague has asked me to call him - well if only I could! I have tried twice now and have waited ten minutes each time but have been unable to get through to anyone. This level of appalling service fills me with apprehension and adds to my lack of confidence in the efficiency of your company.

The person who took down the address in the first place could not have been paying much attention - never before have we had problems with mail being delivered. I would like to talk to someone just to check that our booking is correct since I am now unsure whether all our details were taken down correctly.

I have also noticed that £366.00 has been taken out of my account; however I was quoted £342.00 on the telephone when I made the booking. Unless this matter is resolved satisfactorily, I would like to cancel our booking and receive a full refund from you.

I copied ABTA in on this email.

Again, I am extremely disappointed with your company's level of service.


I have not received a reply to this. I have asked my bank to start trying to get the funds back. I don't know whether they will be successful from what I have been reading on this forum so far.

Any advice would be gratefully received!

find the name of the CEO and write to him !

Many thanks Brian - I have now sent a letter to the Company Secretary - recorded delivery. I'll let you know what happens.

I too wish I had looked at the reviews about this horrendous compnay before actually booking!!! Where do I start? After seeing a bargain on the internet for 2 friends and I for a long weekend in Spain, I decided to give them a call and get some more information!

I spoke to a guy called Paul who seemed in a real rush to get me off the phone. Everytime I asked what was a perfectly normal question like 'is the outbound flight 8.30pm or am' he retorted with a deep sigh and a sarcastic answer. Eventually I wanted to get him off the phone so once happy with the details and pleased with the cheap deal I decided to book for the 3 of us. He also kept saying 'there are only 4 flights left now and they will go soon' which made me just do it as it was the best deal we had seen and we just wanted to go somewhere quickly. I recall he kept saying 'oh that is a lovely hotel, you will love it there' and it almost sounded like he was being disingenuos and having a laugh at my expense. Once I had given my card details as any normal person would do, I asked him for the amount taken from my card. I was quite shocked to hear that he couldn't give me that as the computer didnt say! ('Computer says no' springs to mind) so he just said 'its £189 each, its not hard to work out!' This was my husbands credit card and when he checked online the next day the amount taken was £683.73 rather than £567 giving a difference of £116.73! Paul did mention a credit card charge but nothing else.

I also happened to google the reviews about the particular place where we were staying and it turned out to have the worst reviews I have ever seen (apart from the reviews about this company of course!) I then got angry because Paul had made out it was one of the best hotels in Benalmadena and he had taken too much money! I tried to call and it took me the whole morning at work to even get through. When I eventually got through I spoke to one of the Directors called Mr Douglas (who I am convinced was in fact Paul) and he was sickly sweet and assured me that the hotel we were going to was not actually the one I was reading the reviews for. The hotel I had booked was called the Los Pintores HOTEL. I was reading reviews for the Los Pintores RESORT. The Resort was made up of 3 hotels, The Goya, The Velaquez and the El Greco and according to the reviews they were all absolutely dire. Mr Douglas assured and convinced me that The Los Pintores HOTEL was completely different to the Los Pintores RESORT and it was a separate hotel on it's own. I hept saying well the Los Pintores HOTEL on the internet does not exist and he actually said because it is new and probably does not have a website yet!! He also explained the extra fees (I still dont really understand what the extra £24 per person is!!) but as he was so charming and even said I would never sent my clients to the Resort with the 3 hotels as they are all 'crap' my mind was put at ease and I was looking forward to getting away and staying at a nice new hotel. You may think this sounds naive but I have never spoken to a company who are have lied to me before and just thought they would not be trading if they did that to everyone.

A week before we were due to fly I called again to ask where our tickets were which had not arrived. I spoke to Mr Douglas again who told me they were on their way. I also asked him about the hotel and asked him to asure me it was not the resort with the 3 hotels and agian he said absolutely not, I wouldn't send anyone there. Eventually i decided to do a bit of research and googled reviews for Airbourne Direct. I stumbled across so many websites and was appalled at the reviews and how they had lied to everyone. From one of the reviews I had been given the name 'Adam Lewis' as being a Sales Manager and had his direct number. I proceeded to call Adam to try and find out where my tickets were and ask once again about the accomodation as a travel agent friend had told me that the Los Pintores Hotel did not even exist only the resort! I got straight through to Adam and OMG he was absolutely awful. He told me he could not help and I had to speak to Admin. I told him that Admin never even answer their phone and as he is the Sales Manager surely he could look into this. I also said everytime I call I can never get through and he actually said that is my own fault as from me calling all the time I am hogging the phone line. I was absolutely shocked to be spoken to like that. My friend then called him and he shouted at her at the top of his voice and said 'get off the phone. You are hogging the line'. She then proceeded to ask for a refund and he actually said 'you can F'ing whistle for your money' and then hung up. We then called back and asked to speak to Mr Douglas again as he was the Director and had been actually helpful. When I got through to him he was absolutely vile, not the same 'charmer' I had originally spoken to. He said that my friend had been rude to Adam and because of this he had refused to speak to me. I went on to say that I had witnessed the call and it was Adam that was rude and how can a so called reputable company swear at their customers. He even said 'well he can be rude to her if he wants, she is not the person who booked the flight!' I was shocked! I then said 'I am surprised you are saying all this when the reviews about your company are so dire' He said he didnt know what I was talking about and that he has been trading for 29 years and has never had a bad review! I was speaking perfectly calmly and said I am very nervous about going ahead with this holiday after seeing such bad reviews about both the hotel and his company and could he not understand my anxiety. He then mocked my voice and said to his colleagues 'Oooh everyone, she is nervous now' It was almost laughable! I have never ever in my life come across such rude customer service. I then told him I wanted my money back and that he needed a wake up call as his reviews are horrendous. He then started shouting at me saying I am not going to take that language and I am terminating the call. I am a respectable person and would never use bad language, I feel he only said it to get me off the phone and for his office to think he was being the big man by terminating the call! I was in tears after this call and so wished I had checked all this out before booking.

We even went as far as google mapping the place to see if it was a proper business as we were convinced it was just two guys running it from their house. We actually called a company in the same trading estate to see if they were a reputable company. The girl we spoke to was really helpful and said they have a really bad reputation but people do actually get to their destination in the end. She also said avoid Adam Lewis at all costs as he is a complete w******!!

To cut a long story short we did get the tickets and get away and guess what??....we WERE staying at the Los Pintores RESORT with the 3 hotels!! There was no such thing as a brand new hotel!! I really want to complain about being blatantly lied to and wish I had recorded my own calls as I have since heard they send you recordings but cut out a chunk of the phonecall where they tell all the lies. What is ABTA and how can I log a complaint about this so called company please? I am determined to get my own back and cannot believe they actually treat their customers in this way. I hope they get shut down and lose their jobs!! The only person who is actually OK is Molly, the girl in Admin. Please, please Do NOT use this company!!!! They are a bunch of cowboys.

The CEO is actually Mr Douglas who is as bad as everyone else. Writing to him won't work!! He is as dodgy as hell!