Jinny Reynolds has been busy in the kitchen, preparing frozen meals for her family, because she is spending the weekend in Hamilton for her dad’s birthday.
But she nearly didn’t make it – thanks to Jetstar.
On Monday, Jinny decided to book a ticket to Auckland on Jetstar. She put in her debit card details, confirmed the purchase of $189 and waited 15 seconds.
“It seemed to take a long time and it came back ‘transaction declined’,” she said.
Jinny rang the airline’s call centre, but they told her it would cost extra to book over the phone.
So she decided to have another go online.
Maybe, she thought, she had put in the wrong number.
She tried another two times – both declined.
Thinking it must be a problem at her end, Jinny and her husband contacted the bank – only to be told some shocking news.
“Jetstar had taken out six payments of $189.
“It had just kept taking money out until it could no longer take money out of the account.”
Jinny’s account was cleaned out – and she didn’t have a single ticket to show for it.
Plus, it was a flight she really, really needed to catch.
“It’s my father’s birthday. He has terminal cancer – so he’s not going to make another birthday. It’s important to go up this weekend and be there with family.”
Jinny is close to her dad Wal – and now he has come to her rescue. He and wife Rae paid for Jinny’s airfare, on Air New Zealand.
“They were horrified so actually ended up paying for my tickets,” she says.
“I didn’t want them to pay for the tickets because they had enough on their plate.”
But that doesn’t solve Jinny’s other problem; her account is now in the red, big time.
“We rely on that money and we rely on our APs going out for all our loans and they won’t be going out.
Jinny rang Jetstar as soon as the bank told her the money was gone.
After two hours on the phone, she was no further ahead.
“We kept saying ‘give us our money back. It took you three seconds to take the money so, you know, give it back’. She said it wasn’t procedure for them to do that.
“During our arguments about, you know, ‘You should really give us our money back, ring your refund people’, she kept saying, ‘That’s not procedure’.”
Jetstar apologised, but wouldn’t budge. They told Jinny it is going to take more than a week to process a refund – which Jinny can’t work out, because the bank told her it’s a pretty simple process.
“They said to us, all we need to do is get Jetstar to send a letterhead, or a letter with a Jetstar letterhead on it, explaining what had happened and they could release the hold of our money.
“But when we spoke to Jetstar they said it would take 10 days to fax a letterhead letter to the bank.”
In the meantime, Jinny has got to find some money.
“The apologies don’t pay the bills,” she says.
Campbell Live has had a response from Jetstar. They have reimbursed Jinny and say the money should be in her account within three working days.
However there has been was no mention of paying the interest on her debt.
Watch the video for Anna Burns-Francis’ report