Interislander changes refund process after passengers wait six weeks to get money back

Interislander has changed its refund process after it was discovered some passengers were not being asked for the right information, creating a lengthy process to get their money back.

There were mass ferry cancellations earlier this year after the Kaitaki issued a mayday call in the middle of Cook Strait and suffered a subsequent gearbox problem.

A proactively-released weekly report to the Transport Minister from September said the time it took to process refunds during this period was a “pain point”.

“One of the key factors that slowed us down was the previous form did not enable us to collect all the required information that was needed to process the refund, resulting in the need for multiple interactions with customers,” the report said.

Ewa Kusmierczyk was in Christchurch with her family in February when their sailing home was cancelled at the last minute.

She said they were offered no support and had to make their own way home, paid $1000 for flights, and had to leave their car behind.

“It was an expense that we didn’t really need... but we got home and we were able to borrow a car for a few weeks.”

Kusmierczyk could not be refunded for the tickets at the time because she had paid for them by transferring money from her bank account to avoid a credit card fee.

She finally got her money back six weeks later but only after submitting the refund form twice and making several phone calls.

“The only reason I got the refund is because I essentially chased it up... I was really peeved-off at that point, probably like hundreds of other people.”

Interislander spokesman Peter Mathews said they were pleased to now have an improved system to provide refunds.

“We have added a field to our booking form to capture additional banking details, allowing us to make a refund to a customer’s account without needing to go back to the customer for this information. This makes the process much faster.”

Interislander was unable to give an overview of how many refunds have been issued this year because they are processed by various teams and different systems.

The Herald has previously revealed some customers waited on the phone for up to five hours after their sailings were cancelled earlier this year.

Extra staff were brought in to boost capacity in Interislander’s call centre, which eventually reduced wait times to a matter of seconds rather than hours.

A Commerce Commission investigation into both Interislander and rival operator Bluebridge under the Fair Trading Act is ongoing.

The consumer watchdog is looking into the information ferry passengers were provided about their rights in the event of cancellation or delay of ferry sailings.

Fair trading general manager Kirsten Mannix said the commission has received 67 inquiries about the ferry companies, of which 46 relate to Interislander alone.

Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.