On Dec. 10, after a company holiday party in Chattanooga, my wife sat down at a bus stop to catch the 10pm Chattanooga-to-Atlanta Megabus. She documents what happened next in the following email that she sent to Megabus; Megabus will not take complaints over the phone. After you read, please consider sending this around whatever social media channel(s) you use because we shouldn’t tolerate horrible business models like this.
Pete
Megabus Customer Service,
I booked a seat on megabus (reservation number – 31-9562-121015-M9R-2200-CHT-
I arrived at the stop on time (9:45 pm) and waited for the bus to arrive. The bus was an hour late. I received no status updates through my email and could not reach customer service despite many attempts to contact megabus.
While I was waiting and using my phone to look for updates my phone died. Because it died I could not show the driver my reservation number when she arrived. I told her that I had been waiting for over an hour and that my phone died because I was using it to try to get an update and I got no response.
Someone offered to let me use his iPad to pull up my reservation number. I quickly logged into my email and showed the driver the reservation number. She would not look at the reservation number or acknowledge me at all. She told me that she was not going to allow me on the bus.
As she was closing the bus door, I put my arm in the door to stop her from closing it and asked her if she really intended to not allow me on the bus even though I had purchased a ticket and could now prove my reservation number. She proceeded to call the police because I would not allow her to close the door.
Multiple attempts to contact Megabus on the phone that night and since have ended fruitlessly. Customer service representatives at the main Megabus telephone number will not forward calls to managers/supervisors and direct callers to “send an email to inquiries@megabus.com.” That’s what I’m doing here, but this is not a legitimate solution workflow, so I’m calling out your customer service errors in more public channels as well.
I have used Megabus to travel between Atlanta and Chattanooga several times a month for work this year. I have also used Groomes, which, while less convenient, has never shown this type of terrible customer service. I will not spend another dollar on a Megabus ticket until I receive a refund of my ticket cost for Dec. 10, a refund of my hotel stay that night, and a satisfying explanation of why I was refused service.
Here’s hoping you do the right thing,
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If you’re a current or prospective Megabus user, you might check out the Consumer Affairs Megabus complaint page or the Better Business Bureau’s Megabus complaint page which reveals that 67% of those complaints have not been resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
