Is this Greyhound CSR trying to start a revolution among its customers, or simply telling the wife of a passenger that Greyhound doesn’t care about lost luggage? She claims he told her to “‘get together with everyone else’ who lost luggage ‘and do something about it.'” Like what—start a support group? Meet him behind the bleachers for a fist fight? Open a detective agency in Tupelo?

My brother went on a week long business trip, traveling by Greyhound both ways. When he came home, he made the mistake of putting his bag with his laptop and a borrowed Nintendo DS under the bus. To make matters worse, all of his nice clothes, the sort that he needs to wear to work, were in that bag too. It was apparently misplaced in Tupelo, MS, about 20 miles away from home. From what I understand, there’s no actual bus station there, but people are let on and off. When my brother got off the bus 20 miles later, he discovered that he had no luggage. As we later found out, 3 other passengers on that bus also lost luggage in Tupelo.

My sister-in-law called Greyhound’s customer service quickly, and obviously got a horrible guy on the phone. Not only was he incompetently unhelpful, he suggest that my SIL “get together with everyone else” who lost luggage “and do something about it.” I can’t say how my SIL handled the conversation — there are equal chances that she was pleasant or hostile — but that is obviously not the way you deal with customers unhappy with your screw ups. And when I say he was incompetently unhelpful, I mean he did not even offer to file a claim or lost baggage report.

Thankfully, the people who work for Greyhound in Tupelo were very understanding, and they did fill a report. They also let my SIL know that if my brother’s bags were not found, Greyhound would pay them $250 per bag, and that’s without traveling insurance that he could not afford, as until this business trip, he was unemployed.

So this is what I’m doing about Greyhound’s customer service: If they’re going to be assholes about it, I’m going to write to you in hopes that you’ll help publicly shame them and hopefully deter would-be customers. Maybe if their CSRs start costing the company money, they’ll train them properly.

Thanks,
Mache

You should also have your sister-in-law write a letter to Greyhound’s executives explaining exactly what happened—the more details, the better. Check out our guide on writing Executive Email Carpet Bombs if you don’t know where to start, and here’s a list of some addresses you might need.

(Photo: njt4148)

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