James

I have banked with Scotia since 1997, and they have been good. My HSBC account recently converted into an RBC acount, and this has not been a good experience. I appreciate Scoiabank even more now that I have experienced RBC (which I reviewed and had no hesitation in giving one star).

Coming here and seeing all these bad reviews makes me feel better! Unfortunately RBC took over HSBC's business in Canada. HSBC were friendly and good. RBC has been, well to put it simply, ridiculous. I went to all the trouble of setting up with them. I got the online banking going, etc. I could have simply jumped ship right from the start, but I took my time to work with them. They wrote to us a little while after the start and told us they were extending the "no fee" period. Well that was nice but HSBC did not have any fees, so perhaps it seemed a little ominous. Then a few months ago (about a year and a half after the takeover) they wrote to us saying they were keeping our accounts no fee indefinitely. Ok, that's good. Then they sent me an email two weeks ago saying they had decided to close my account (with some vague reference to "a review" they had conducted of their products and services - but not providing any concrete explanation at all). They then demanded that I remove my money before some date in 2022 (yep, three years ago). Then they sent a "recall" email - which certainly made them look very professional – loads of sarcasm intended there). Then they sent another "ACTION REQUIRED" email demanding that I remove my money by a date in December - again without any substantial explanation. Finally, today, I received a letter, which demands I remove my money by another date in another month. All I can say is that I will be only too happy to take all my business over to Scotia - which has served me faithfully since 1997. I will have nothing further to do with RBC, and would suggest others think carefully before having anything to do with this, in my estimation, dysfunctional bank.

I have written this to Lonely Planet directly, but just have to repeat what everyone else is saying here too. The new LP books are a total, complete, utter disaster (am I making myself clear? ;) They have taken out all the useful information and left a kind of travel brochure. The more we tried to use the new editions the more frustrating and annoying the whole experience became. Unless LP change back, and quickly, I suspect their business is toast. I just cannot imagine anyone paying for this stuff anymore. It's all very sad for us, because LP made a real difference over the years. Now we will have to piece together the picture individually, scouring the internet for the needed information. Imagine all the wasted hours on the part of people repeating the same process! This was the value that LP added, and now they have decided they don't want to be at the centre of that network anymore. I cannot imagine what is left for them in terms of a business.

NB LP “replied” below, but it’s clear they never read my message. I said I had already passed this on directly to them right at the start, and yet they tell me how to do this. All very sad. How do these people imagine this is going to end from a commercial point of view?

I have used Booking.com a great deal over a decade now. Overall they have been hugely helpful. The few negatives I have include: 1. It did take a while, and a few too many messages, to get my money back for a cancellable (in any case) booking during the pandemic. 2. The fact that I don't think it is possible to simply call them on the phone. This said, overall the site has made the process of finding good places to stay and booking a great, great deal easier. They are in a different universe in terms of quality from the likes of Airbnb (in my view a rubbish service). I have probably used Booking.com to book over 100 places, and I had one person once cancel a booking on me (which was a small B&B - and it was cancelled by the place not Booking). Overall, very satisfied!

Over the years I have had pretty good experiences with Schwab. A few years ago they did have a problem with their international accounts where we could not move money from our US bank accounts anymore, but they got this sorted out in time. They answer the phone quickly and generally make good sense when you talk to them. They are one of the best brokers I deal with.

I recently opened a CMA. I called up today to get some details and check some of the information they had on file. I did have to wait qutie a while on hold (perhaps half an hour) but after this the service was friendly, efficient and all four of my queries were sorted out well (and one was a little complex at least). Useful product and positive initial impressions of cusomter service.

I have had an ING account for about a generation now. When they first opened in Australia ~25 years ago they were pretty efficient. Everything worked and they offered higher rates of interest. My impression from that time was good. Fast forward two decades and the rot really seems to have set in. They are the only bank of which I am aware that routinely seems to want certified copies of passports, etc (other banks simply ask for your passport number and medicare details and then are able to update/reverify your identity whenever they feel this is needed). ING are also dysfunctional in other ways. I was recently trying to open a new kind of account (as the old high interest accounts are no longer high interest, due I suspect to ING having quite a few older customers who have left money in these accounts - ING have this money essentially for free now and don't want to upset that particular, more than slightly dodgy, licence to print money). Anyway, I was trying to open an account. Should be simple enough. With their competitors it is often instant and easy to do this. But not with ING. After three weeks, something like an hour on hold over two conversations, multiple secure messages, ING providing timelines and then consistently failing to meet them, ING deciding that they needed a certified copy of Mum's death certificate (she died seven years ago) for reasons they were never able to explain (and I cannot imagine there is any rational explanation), ING finally totally contradicted multiple represenations to that point and decided they cannot in fact open a new account at all. I discussed my experience with family and friends and discovered that mutliple people I know have had bad experiences - one going on over three years with far more twists and turns than my three week ordeal. While in theory this company still offers products that could be useful to me, I have decided that life is too short. I suspect may others would have reached the same conclusion (and I see below that I was right about this). How sad. Lucky they are not a monopoly I guess!

I was flying from Geneva to Amsterdam today on KL1936 leaving at 17:15. I had one soft bag and a poster with me. This was far less hand baggage than most of the passengers (especially all those people with hard, wheeled bags). When I got on the plane I took a small backpack out of my soft bag to put under my seat and put the soft bag and the poster in the luggage compartment. These things took up substantially less space in total than one hard wheeled bag. After a period a hostess came around and took my things out of the luggage compartment, without any opportunity for discussion. She wanted to put a hard, wheeled bag up there. She demanded that I keep my things on my lap for the entire flight. I have photos of this. I could not put my table down, or do any work. It was uncomfortable and entirely unreasonable. In addition to all else, the hostesses wilfully ignored that this was a breach of their own instructions to us for takeoff and landing (and a breach of the instructions given on all airlines I ever flew on) not to have baggage on your lap during takeoff and landing. It’s also obviously putting both me and the passengers around me at risk if there is turbulence, etc, during the flight. No staff tried in any way to remedy this situation for the entire flight (e.g. by finding space at the front of the plane). At the end I asked to see the head of the cabin crew. I told her what had happened. She seemed to think the whole thing was just fine and did not apologise or try to explain in any way (I guess this fish “rots from the head”). Her colleague even chimed in that, in her view, there was no safety rule that baggage cannot be carried on a passenger’s lap. I asked for some form of identification (a name or number) from the head of the cabin crew. She explicitly refused to identify herself. In sum, once more, I was discriminated against and given a very poor experience because I took *less* cabin baggage than others, and we all have been put in danger due to the behaviour of these staff. I tried to make this complaint on the KLM website, but when you try to complain it says “ Sorry, there's been a technical error. Please try again later.” The complaints function is broken it seems - what a surprise! I will be taking this up with EASA unless I get a satisfactory response from KLM pronto.

Update - A day or two later KLM’s complaints function was working, so I posted the details above directly to them. I received a reply on 20.6.24. That reply was unresponsive to the main issues (it did not mention “safety” a single time), it was wholly unconvincing and unimpressive. I suspect it was written by an AI model (with not much of the “I” and lots of the “A”). Amongst other weird contentions it said “please note that any decision-making related to this matter will not be disclosed due to the data protection policy”. Is this an attempt at some weird kind of bureaucratic humour? I previously had a fairly good impression of KLM. How I have had to revise that! And I have made a report to the relevant safety authorities given KLM’s failure to respond appropriately.

A recent bad experience with Meindl reminded me how good my Zamberlan boots have been. The first pair lasted well over a decade of solid use. The second pair of classic hiking boots I have from them are up to 19 years and still going strong. Highly recommended!

Like so many others here I am disgusted by the service I received from Meindl. This presents itself, and is presented by the shoe sellers in the UK, as a German traditional family company that cares deeply about the durability of its products and its reputation. When something goes wrong, however, they quickly protest that the materials they use are not durable, and that Meindl has no responsibility for this. It's not just what they are doing, but how they are doing it that really incenses me. They even try to palm what I would call their "dirty work" off onto unrelated companies (in the UK an outfit called "Bramwell International"). That said, after substantial efforts I did manage to get in touch with the actual company, and it is my opinion that this fish is rotting from the head. Will never buy their products again. By way of comparison I have been using Zamberlan boots since 1990 and so far have had excellent experiences (although never had to deal with the company, as their boots have performed superbly, so no need to get in touch).

I generally defend Ryanair when the topic comes up (as it often does amongst travellers). That said, I recently had a bad experience and thought it worth sharing:

Another passenger (Debby) and I were the last two to board a flight. We followed directly on from those in front of us in the line (there was no break).
When Debby presented her identification to the lady at the gate she was told the flight had “closed” and that the remaining passengers had been "offloaded". The reason, it seems, was that we had waited until the line was short to join it, rather than standing in the line for a long time. This, apparently, was disagreeable to the man in charge of the gate, who was standing nearby (a Ryanair employee in high viz jacket with "team leader" written on the back). The man had closed the flight and “offloaded” us summarily - apparently to teach us some kind of lesson. The man in question then started chastising Debby for not waiting in the line, but rather “walking off”. He said he had “seen her” doing this. None of this made any sense because, as said, we followed on directly from those in front of us in the line.
The lady at the gate was apologetic in manner. She implicitly accepted that what was going on was ridiculous, and got on with “reloading” us onto the flight - after the man had finished trying to scare Debby.
Both I and Debby were reentered on the flight by the lady. This was a cause of some minutes of delay for us. When we arrived at the plane there was still a long line waiting on the tarmac to enter it.
Before leaving the gate I asked for identification from the man. He refused to provide any identification and, indeed, purposefully zipped his jacket up so I could not see his ID. I then asked the lady at the gate for some kind of identification for her. She was going to provide identification, but the man convinced her to refuse. (What an impressive “Team Leader” he is!)

The individual in question is wasting the time of both other employees and passengers. He was rude to others before we boarded, and tried to create difficulties for us for no reason at all. The experience we had appeared to be part of his standard modus operandi. His approach to customers would have fitted in well in the Soviet Union, but is entirely inappropriate in the context of a customer-service- based business.

Flying demands quite enough of passengers in these difficult times, without deliberate attempts by rogue staff to scare passengers (apparently as some sort of game or power trip). Worst of all? The company does not seem too concerned that it has a "team leader" who is wilfully disagreeable. They have failed to propose any meaningful action after two months of having the details of this case. They are, apparently, still busy passing the file around internally.

I am looking forward to seeing other low-cost airlines find the sweet spot when it comes to customer service. Ryanair got a lot better, but does not see to me able to quite grow up into a more mature operation.

What's the best low cost airline? That's easy, in my view. It's Norwegian.

Happy flying/safe travels.

AirBnb is trying to do something very interesting. What they are trying to do is actually rather difficult to do. So if they were a sensible outfit they might just make it work, but it would be difficult. As it is I find this company so deeply obnoxious that I cannot imagine it will survive (except perhaps by the good graces of its customers). I have used them a few times. All the places I stayed in had very strong reviews. The bathroom was never clean. One host was a little sad but doing her best. Two were ok. Two were excellent. All in all I don't think I have done badly. There were signs of promise. All the reviews I received were very kind (which is, after all, always nice). I was able to leave some pretty strong reviews too (friendly, thoughtful people certainly compensate for dirty bathrooms :) Despite an enormous time expenditure to organise these stays I probably would have given AirBnb a try every now and then in the future all things being equal. But AirBnB seems intent on making life more and more difficult, not easier, and that is the nub of the problem. When you book they take the money straight away (but don't give it to the host until after you start to stay). That's not a hold, they actually take the money. Free interest is fun, no doubt. Even if you cancel within the time allowed, they keep their substantial booking fee (Booking.com does not, for example, do that). They force currency exchanges to occur within their system, accreting further quiet but material fees to themselves (Booking.com does not do that either). Basically every little thing is set up not to help customers but so this corporation can gain some little advantage here, some there. When one tries to communicate through their system, they censor the messages. Whether or not hosts wanted it, AirBnb kept threatening to make me send over an electronic copy of my passport or driver's licence which they wanted to keep on their system (sending something like this to a commercial enterprise to store on its servers is, of course, crazy). They also tried to make me give them access to my Google drive account (yes, I'm not joking) and to manage my contacts (perhaps they would like to add in some new people and see if I can spot the difference?) When I said what they were asking was inappropriate, and despite the fact that the host I was trying to book with at the time wanted me to stay (we had been able to vet each other's identity to our mutual satisfaction), they attempted to stand in our way. They were not interested in conducting a reasoned discussion but rather intimated that I was "leaving their community" (like not using them was akin to being exiled or some such nonsense). They come across as a weird, manipulative, even odious, operation. Lots of other people have similar concerns. The web offers many interesting newspaper articles and blog posts on AirBnb, in addition to all that is written on this website. If you do use them, do it on your own terms, and go in fully prepared to have a struggle with - what I found to be - a bizarre, faceless behemoth.

Have just booked a hotel and got a confirmation e-mail. Now the site is buggy and would not even let me in at first. After that they had lost my booking. I guess I will take the booking confirmation to the hotel and hope it all works out - but I would work hard to avoid using agora in the future. Booking.com is MUCH better.