A woman in BC says a stranger claimed her BC Ferries reservation before she arrived at the terminal.
Meagan Williams tells Daily Hive she was travelling from Vancouver (Horseshoe Bay) to the Sunshine Coast (Langdale) on Wednesday, August 28. She reserved the 7 pm sailing and said she arrived one hour earlier with her sister and seven-year-old daughter in the car.
She pre-purchased her fare for herself, her daughter, and a vehicle in late July and paid $73.40 at the time, she said. While she had planned to arrive at Vancouver Horseshoe Bay to pay for an additional adult since her sister was travelling with her back to the Sunshine Coast, she said she was not anticipating repaying an entire secondary fare.
However, she explains that when she pulled up to the Vancouver terminal and showed the BC Ferries staff member her reservation they said, “Oh, it’s already been claimed.”
“I said, ‘That’s not possible because I haven’t travelled on the ferry today,’” she responded.
However, according to Williams the staff member said her booking was claimed for an earlier sailing.
Williams said she was stunned, checked her BC Ferries account and saw for herself that her booking had indeed been claimed.
“But it wasn’t me,” she told Daily Hive.
Meagan Williams and her daughter
Williams said the BC Ferries staff member admitted the circumstances were “weird,” tried to resolve the matter, and called a manager. However, she said that after the staff member got off the phone with their manager, he said, “You’re not going to like this.”
She said the staff member was told she would need to repurchase her fare and call customer relations to launch an investigation and give her a refund.
“I had to pay twice for one sailing,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
After repurchasing her fare, Williams said she immediately called customer relations and was told to send evidence by email.
She said she emailed her receipts and information “right away,” but “I’ve never heard anything back from them,” aside from an automatic reply.
She didn’t hear back for two weeks, so she tried to reach BC Ferries by email and phone.
However, “I heard nothing,” she added.
Williams was able to board the 7 pm ferry on August 28.
Not the first time
Williams lives in Pender Harbor on the Sunshine Coast and says she heavily relies on BC Ferries.
“I ride the ferry four times a week,” she said.
In her years of experience riding BC Ferries, she said she had a similar encounter to the one in August just one year ago.
She explained when she was heading to Victoria, a BC Ferries staff member at the Tsawwassen terminal said somebody redeemed her booking. However, the staff member later found another person with a similar name but spelled differently and who had checked in under the wrong reservation.
“So the guy found it and he corrected it,” Williams said, adding that the issue was resolved in minutes.
Exterior of Tsawwassen Quay Market at BC Ferries’ Tsawwassen Quay Terminal. (Google Maps)
“Life is not cheap”
While she was able to repay the BC Ferries fare in August, Williams said she couldn’t help but think about a time in her life when spending an extra $75 would have been challenging.
“I’m grateful that I am in a relatively secure financial position… but there’s a lot of people that travel that can’t,” she said. “And as a single parent, there was a time in my life when I couldn’t have spared another $100 to get home,” she said.
“You know, it was an expensive month back to school… like what would have happened if I didn’t have [enough money].
“Life is not cheap, especially on the coast.”
“No response, no comment, no nothing”
Daniel Chai/Daily Hive
Williams added that it felt like a “slap in the face,” especially not having heard back from BC Ferries.
“I run a business, and this is absolutely not how you operate a business,” she said.
“The thing is… that they’re your only option,” she added. “It shouldn’t be so challenging. It just feels very wrong that there’s no urgency to resolve the situation, no response, no comment, no nothing.”
While she admits that mistakes can happen, Williams questions, “Why am I left with that penalty when I didn’t do anything wrong?”
“I think that’s my problem,” she said. “Somebody else took my reservation. If you guys didn’t verify that, that’s your problem. And if you gave somebody else my booking, that’s your problem.”
In an email response to Daily Hive, BC Ferries said, “It appears there was an issue during the check-in process where the wrong reservation was redeemed.”
It added that it is apologetic for the inconvenience and said that while the situation is “extremely rare,” it is taking “full accountability.”
“Customer Relations is reaching out to the customer, and they will be receiving a full refund. Our standard process is to thoroughly investigate customer concerns to identify where errors occurred, allowing us to continuously improve our service and maintain customer trust,” the statement reads. “We take customer concerns very seriously and work to resolve them as quickly as possible.”
Daily Hive asked Williams if she had received a response, but as of Wednesday afternoon, she said she had not heard back.