I am a U.S. citizen. Last May I was supposed to fly from the U.S. to Europe via a European airline for vacation. Despite showing up to the airport on time, there was no agent at the check-in counter. After speaking with airport personnel they helped me locate the check-in agent, who had relocated to the gate area. She refused to come back to check me into my flight and said I was late (I wasn't) and that I would have to call the airline and be booked on another flight. Various airport personnel including airport security agreed with me that I was not late to check-in because the airlines at my airport are required to stay at check-in up to 1 hour before departure. I arrived almost 1.5 hours before departure. Apparently this airline only serves 1 flight per day from the airport I flew out of and not a lot of people fly them. They only have 1 check-in agent working who decided to leave early to the gate area.
After calling the airline, they told me the next flight wasn't until 3 days later. I told them to cancel and refund me but they refused. I ended up losing money from a lot of non-refundable reservations I made in Europe (train tickets, hotels, etc).
I called my credit card company, filed a complaint, and the credit card company gave me my money back from the airlines. The airline failed to respond to the credit card company on time and has effectively lost the case as far as the credit card company is concerned.
Fast forward to today and the airline has sent me an e-mail telling me I owe them money for the airfare, and that I need to wire the money to them because they are no longer allowed to charge my credit card (given that they failed to respond on time). They said that if I don't pay them, they will pass my debt to a collection company...based in Germany. I have never been to Germany and have no plans of ever going.
What can this airline / collections company based in Germany really do to me if I don't pay? All they know about me is my e-mail address and home address (which I plan to move out of very soon). They don't know my social.
EDIT: The airline is Thomas Cook but was processed by Condor. Not sure how they're related but all I know is that I was supposed to fly in a Thomas Cook aircraft, but Condor processed the ticket sale.
Submitted October 10, 2017 at 11:03AM by airlinewantsmymoney http://ift.tt/2i1AahK
