Greyhound tickets from Raleigh to Asheville cost $67.50, unless you’re Meg Stivison. Then they cost over $1,000. Greyhound repeatedly charged Stivison’s debit card while insisting that she didn’t know the address on her bank statement. Meg ended up driving down to the bus terminal to buy a ticket, but that was just the start of her nightmarish journey…

Meg tried calling Greyhound to sort out the overcharge. Greyhound has a separate phone tree option for overcharges, but it leads only to static indifference. Greyhound’s customer service voicemail is equally useless and didn’t seem to be connected to anything either.

Greyhound eventually felt bad for the overcharge and the cold shoulder so they sent Meg a letter.

…yesterday, I got a form letter from Greyhound, apologizing because of my “concerns regarding not being able to reach customer service”. What? I wasn’t calling up customer service to say hello! I was calling about the THOUSAND DOLLARS I’d been overcharged. I didn’t need a apology because no one picked up the phone, especially that apology completely ignored the reason I was calling, those ten times they charged my card.

So now I’m completely furious again. I don’t want a voucher for a discount my next ticket, I’m pretty sure this has been my last Greyhound trip. Isn’t an old saying about this kind of situation: Overcharge me a thousand dollars once, shame on you. But twice, shame on me. Something like that. But I would like a “Sorry we were incredibly rude about not being able to sell you a ticket, while actually charging you ten times for that ticket. Sorry that when you called about that, our customer service number goes straight to disconnected voicemail.” form letter.

Think they’ve got one of those made up?

Don’t count on Greyhound to do reverse the charges. Call you bank instead and ask them to return your cash. If they’ve ever ridden Greyhound before, they should be more than sympathetic.

Greyhound Form Letter [Simpson’s Paradox]
(Photo: heliosphan)

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