What to do when complaining fails

Up until now I was pouring my sorrows on the digital paper without providing any advice to a prospective reader. Well, with baggage claims the situation is quite clear, you can either go to court suing the airline for damages, or try to find an out-of-court settlement. There are agencies dealing with airline irregularities like the National Enforcement Bodies, but they do not deal with such small matters like baggage claims. Please mind that I am writing about the EU countries here, though my limited research revealed that elsewhere it is much more difficult to exercise one's rights.

Obviously, not being a lawyer and living in a foreign country made the choice for me. This is of course what the airlines in such situations hope for - too big of an effort to bother over a hundred odd Euros. I do not know what would be Lufthansa's position in the matter, decided to try the latter option, which by no means prevented me from suing later. Please mind that under Montreal Convention the biggest refund you can get from an airline is about €1100, otherwise you need to insure your luggage separately. Montreal Convention is an international agreement about standards in dealing with air traffic irregularities, ratified by most of the developed countries, see Montreal Convention on Wikipedia. 

So I decided to contact the European Consumer Center, an European Commission body aimed to settle cases between individual consumers and companies. I must admit that they helped me greatly, managed to get Lufthansa to settle, and reimburse me for a new suitcase. 

ECC logo

The procedure is easy, you need to collect your correspondence with the company you bought a good or service from, together with all relevant documentation. Please mind that ECC requires that you had already complained to the trader but found no resolution. Also, you need to contact the appropriate ECC of you country of residence. So for the Netherlands you can use the following link.I suggest reading the descriptions carefully as they provide better explanation that I ever could.

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First complaints

As I had not received the promised call with a solution from Dolfi1920, I decided to do a more thorough online research on the company. I was aware that people only make extra effort to complain online and was not expecting great reviews. However, what I encountered was a limited, but clear stream of dissatisfied customers whose rights were seemingly violated by them. To list a few:

• Facebook unofficial page
• Blog story of their bad service
• Customer experience story - horrifying [PL]

From then on, I really started expecting trouble. Nevertheless, I waited a few days for contact that never came. Then, I decided to write a complaint letter to Lufthansa and sent it by email. It was a long one, you probably noticed I tend to write a lot, in which I described my problems, inconveniences, and demanded their involvement as well as supervision of the matter. 

The following day I received a phone call early in the morning where the Lufthansa agent apologised and promised to expedite the process to Dolfi's management. However, being asked to supervise the process or to follow up on that, he decisively refused. It was a strange conversation, the caller did not speak English well, and was breaking up a lot. I voiced my concerns but these were either disregarded or quietly omitted. Nevertheless, with a promise of prioritizing my issue, I was hopeful of a swift contact from Dolfi, and of solving the matter soon. We ended the conversation on friendly terms. 

Yet, Dolfi1920 never responded to my complaint. In one of the future phone conversations I was told they received, but nobody just bothered to call me and arrange anything. I realised they would try to wait me out so that I give in, and adjust to them. Being a quite stubborn person, that never happened and I just waited. Fortunately, I had no travel plans where I would have needed a large suitcase, which still remained damaged and in my possession.

A week has passed with no reaction from either Lufthansa or Dolfi1920, so I decided to write another complaint, this time in a bit stronger articulation. Since it is my email, I can post it here without any further repercussions:

"Dear Sir/Madam,
I am yet again writing to complain about the level of service you are providing, regarding my damaged luggage with FB ID 30424550, and reference number GDNLH36248. It has been another week and no progress in the matter.
I wrote to you previously on May 15th to escalate the problems I was facing with Dolfi1920, a company to which you assigned my case to. I am afraid they simply ignored my complaint as we weren't in contact since that was made. I am outraged that you treat your customers like that.
This time I really require you to take charge of the matter and come up with a solution to the problem, including a definite timeline. I am afraid that raising the issue to Dolfi1920's management is by no means sufficient, as they ignored it, and I quite frankly am no longer willing to cooperate in such a manner.
All in all, I absolutely require a solution from you with no half-measures. As before, you can contact me via email, or call xxxxxxx
I am looking forward to your timely response.
Kind regards,
Paweł xxxxx"

The following day I received a polite reply. It just was not something I had expected. Lufthansa completely washed their hands of it, and apart from forwarding my email to Dolfi1920, refused to do anything. Quoting a part of the email:

"(..) And the said repair shop Dolfi1920 is a third party management that has its own policy and procedure which means that Airline policy does not apply at all with a different company and with a different nature of business. (..) Whilst we understand your disappointment on this occasion, Lufthansa cannot influence the policy and procedure which is under the third party responsibility."

This was of course outrageous, as under the Montreal Convention it was Lufthansa that was liable for the damage, not a party they employed to fix it. I arrived at a strange situation where the liable party refused to take any action, the repair company I was forced to deal with kept on ignoring me, and quite frankly had no obligations towards me as I had not purchased any service from them. 

It was the first time then that I allowed myself to think that there was a possibility the two companies would leave me hanging, and I would never get my suitcase repaired nor any compensation. Not really liking this option, I decided to research my possibilities of a complaint to the authorities, and once more try to arrange something with Dolfi1920. Disappointed, I decided to call Dolfi1920 and see what can be done...

The disaster hits

On April 29th, I was travelling from Amsterdam Schiphol to Gdańsk via Munich. Upon collecting my suitcase I realised it was missing a wheel. It was my first experience of this type as usually I fly only with a hand luggage. Without thinking much of it I went to report it. Then, I experienced my first hiccups. 

Reporting the damage was easy, nobody questioned its validity and I managed to quickly get a signed form. However, since my flight back was in 9 days I was informed that there were no chances of getting it repaired or replaced in that time, so I would have to deal with a damaged one, or find a suiting solution on my own. When I asked for a substitute, the agent almost choked with laughter. I realised I would have to endure an inconvenient trip back including transfers and nobody cared the least. Yet, since it was just a wheel, and being happy to be back home, I did not care too much.

The damage

Two days later I used an online form to report damage to Lufthansa. I got quickly a reply about processing and a day later a formal reply accepting the claim. Not knowing why, a customer satisfaction survey followed immediately, as if Lufthansa considered the matter closed. Furthermore I was a bit puzzled by a part of their email, which read: 

We would be happy to assist you in this matter. We do require an independent assessment for all damaged items. You are welcome to contact our recommended repairers, Dolfi1920 who will repair or replace your suitcase with a similar model as applicable and then invoice us directly so you are not required to make any payment. We have provided further contact details below.

Please notice that in this polite text Lufthansa forces me to deal with a third party company, something I did not agree to, nor expected. Yet, I was unaware at this point that my claim has been sold to the lowest bidder (of course this is still only a hunch, Lufthansa never commented on why and how my case has changed "ownership").

To start arranging a repair, still in good faith and without prejudice, I waited until my return to the Netherlands. Of course I had to fill yet another online form, asking the plenty of details about the suitcase. I managed to do so on May 9th and awaited a reply.

Background story

I would like to share a story of my dealings with Lufthansa as well as a repair company called Dolfi1920 over a damaged suitcase during one of my flights. I allowed myself to paraphrase Lufthansa's slogan - nonstop you - to better suit the reality. I am only publishing this blog after the case has been settled, so that they do not hold any leverage over me. It took 106 days to settle a seemingly simple case, and way too much effort, including involvement from the European Consumer Center. Unfortunately, the only way for me as a customer to fight for my rights in the future is to make the case public.

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