BC Ferries refuses woman 10 cents short on ferry fare

[Harvey Specter]

I remember 10 years ago my friends would use cancelled credit cards to get on the ferry and than proceed to buy stuff on the ferry with the same card because BC Ferries authorized cards at the end of the day.

[dinosaur]

^^ That is how I paid for SFU parking for a few years

[Harvey Specter]

^
Lol, a lot of the parking lots in downtown were the same.

[Phil@rise]

If their system wouldnt allow multiple forms of payment for the fee all the cashier needed to do was call a higher up for authorization to waive the fee and be given a boarding pass but people are so entitled arrogant and stupid these days they wouldnt make that call.

[Mr.HappySilp]

Originally Posted by quasi

It's not so black and white, like said above it's 10 cents on $20. I don't know what you do for a living but I have to make judgement calls all the time, sometimes we have to bend the rules to make the system work. In this case something could have been done, the Province article even says that BC Ferries apologizes and admits it could have been handled differently so it's quite obvious that there was an error made.

Of coz they would say that. I work with customer all the time and I can tell you things work differently behind close doors.

We are given a policy (I assume the guy at the BC ferry is given a policy as well) and we are to stick to it no matter what. If we ask a superisor/amangers about certain things they all say stick to the policy (so most likely the guy at BC ferry know this so didn't bother asking).

When shit hits the fan (such as this case) management comes in and apolgize and blame it on the little guys that they could have handle differently..........

See what I mean. Little guys need to follow policy or get yell or fire by management, management blame little guys when shit hits the fan and little guy gets fire.

Either way the little guys are screw.

[Marco911]

Originally Posted by bing

Although I don't have any experience being a foot passenger, I find it hard to believe in this day and age where your average cashier can do a combination of credit and gift cards to pay for purchases, the same cannot be done with BC Ferries. What the heck kind of card system are they using? Are "modern card systems" built to be this inflexible or do companies do this purposely so people can't ever spend the entire amount on their cards? For example, if you have to load $60 min and your fare each time comes out to $19.21, it will become troublesome to get the card to a 0 balance, which thus allows the company, in effect, to keep all the extra dollars and cents.

It's probably by design, if you consider the internal control and accounting issues involved. The system might be designed not to give the operator any flexibility because it becomes an accounting nightmare to match the ridership with the fare revenue from the card.

I don't get how the Octopus card example compares here. One is a card with positive value while you are describing a card that has hit negative value already.

At least if you still have HK$1 on the Octopus card, it'll still allow you to do one more transaction and go negative for up to HK$35.

It's not really a negative value since you have a $50 deposit on the card. So it's still a positive value.

[Marco911]

Originally Posted by bing

Or a supervisor/manager could have just gotten the girl to call her parents for a credit card # and just put it through manually.

Or a 20 year old adult just learnt a valuable life lesson.

[Marco911]

Originally Posted by Lord Disick

I remember 10 years ago my friends would use cancelled credit cards to get on the ferry and than proceed to buy stuff on the ferry with the same card because BC Ferries authorized cards at the end of the day.

Your friends are low-lifes. If any of my friends did this, they would cease being my friends.

[Marco911]

Originally Posted by Phil@rise

If their system wouldnt allow multiple forms of payment for the fee all the cashier needed to do was call a higher up for authorization to waive the fee and be given a boarding pass but people are so entitled arrogant and stupid these days they wouldnt make that call.

The only one feeling entitled is the customer trying to get a service without having the proper form of payment.

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by Marco911

The only one feeling entitled is the customer trying to get a service without having the proper form of payment.

When did CA$H stop being a proper form of payment? Wow, imagine someone being so fucking ENTITLED to think that their LEGAL TENDER should be accepted in commerce.

Other people's anecdotal evidence shows that using cash to make up the difference on a short Experience Card IS acceptable, and HAS been done before.

[Marco911]

Originally Posted by Soundy

When did CA$H stop being a proper form of payment? Wow, imagine someone being so fucking ENTITLED to think that their LEGAL TENDER should be accepted in commerce.

Other people's anecdotal evidence shows that using cash to make up the difference on a short Experience Card IS acceptable, and HAS been done before.

Wrong. Since you get savings by using the card rather than cash, it makes perfect sense that they don't allow a partial cash/card transaction. This is from BC Ferries FAQ on the Experience Card:

"Q. Will BC Ferries Experience™ cardholders receive a specific number of trips for loading the minimum amount?
A. No. Loading the minimum amount entitles a BC Ferries Experience™ cardholder to access the reduced fares for either passengers or vehicles and passengers respectively at the current price at the time of travel.

Loading a minimum amount does not entitle a specific number of trips and there must be sufficient balance on the card to cover the entire fare. Customers will be charged the current reduced fare. If there is not sufficient balance on the card to cover the applicable reduced fare, customers will be charged the full cash fare."

She did not have enough cash to cover the full fare, and she did not have a sufficient balance on the card to get the trip (and savings from using the card).
If her idiot mother was so concerned about her daughter, she could have registered the auto load procedure.

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by Marco911

Wrong. Since you get savings by using the card rather than cash, it makes perfect sense that they don't allow a partial cash/card transaction.

Except that they DO. Officially or not, it IS allowed.

[coolname]

When I took the ferry this week my fare was forty dollars and some cents (can't remember exactly how much) and the attendant just let me on with out making me break a bill. I was paying cash so it might of been different but shows that they don't need the full payment and at least some of there workers are human lol
Posted via RS Mobile

[vitaminG]

Originally Posted by Soundy

Except that they DO. Officially or not, it IS allowed.

so she wanted someone to bend the rules for her and they didnt and now shes all upset.

just goes back to the sense of entitlement that these people have. islanders were complaining that they wanted a lower rate since they travel frequently . so BC ferries comes out with a card that gives lower rate (on the already subsidized ferry) on the condition you prepay $60 at a time. now she doesnt have enough cash on the card, cant put $60 on it, wants to pay combination cash and card and still get the discounted rate.

and then they dont do it and its all bc ferries fault

[PeanutButter]

Originally Posted by Marco911

Your friends are low-lifes. If any of my friends did this, they would cease being my friends.

I find it very hard to believe all your friends are mother teresa types.
And you're telling me if your best friend did this you would cease being friends with him/her? haha sure bud.

I'm not condoning this behaviour, but let's try to be a little more realistic next time.

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by PeanutButter

I find it very hard to believe all your friends are mother teresa types.
And you're telling me if your best friend did this you would cease being friends with him/her? haha sure bud.

I'm not condoning this behaviour, but let's try to be a little more realistic next time.

All of Marco's friends work at Swedish Touch and cost him $200/hr.

[Lomac]

Originally Posted by PeanutButter

I find it very hard to believe all your friends are mother teresa types.
And you're telling me if your best friend did this you would cease being friends with him/her? haha sure bud.

I'm not condoning this behaviour, but let's try to be a little more realistic next time.

You're new here so you're forgiven for not understanding Marco.

[Marco911]

Originally Posted by Soundy

Except that they DO. Officially or not, it IS allowed.

Too bad you don't have anything to back up your claim. So I win. Again.

[Lowered_Klass]

Originally Posted by El Bastardo

The Gulf Islands are populated by a large amount of folks who couldn't cut it in regular society. Some of them are hippies who are hanging on to the 1967 "Summer of Love" glory days, some of them are burnouts who want to be "Off the grid", and a significant portion of them are draft dodgers/children of draft dodgers who weren't smart enough to fake asthma or homosexuality to avoid going to Vietnam.

They have an anti-government, anti-mainstream culture and therefore have a hard time existing in the "real world". I'm not surprised that this adult has been so sheltered that she relies on others to take care of her and that her mom was downright SHOCKED that people in the real world didn't fall all over themselves to open their homes to this person who was in an inconvenient spot.

Its pretty sad when I have to refer to Nanaimo as the "real world" but I guess when compared to the hemp hazed stupor of Gabriola, Nanaimo may as well be Manhattan.

I've always wondered why they don't build a bridge across Mudge and into Cedar, then run a foot passenger ferry to the north tip of the island for those who want that option... but I guess B.C. Ferries, in partnership with Translink, want to keep the money flowing.

Denman/Hornby, Quadra, and Saltspring all have points close enuf to Vancouver Island to be able to build low-slung bridges which can be raised for boat traffic. Sadly, however, their residents won't put down the bong long enough to mobilize and appeal to have bridges built.

tl;dr: hippies suck.

Unfortunately, this only applies to probably half of the population on Gabriola. You're forgetting the other half, which is largely made up of well-off, pretentious a-holes who generally hate the 'hippie' mentality/entitlement. I should know, my in-laws live there, and they fall under the 'pretentious dicks' catagory.

I still think BC Ferries dropped the ball here, and because this chick lives over there, I'm willing to bet just about anything that the cashier in the booth KNEW damn well she lived there, and should have just waved her through. Or even lent her the money, something the cashier should not have HAD to do, but since chances are they KNOW each other, why not help her out? But I guess this sort of thing is long dead nowadays.

On the other hand, everyone that live on the island knows FULL WELL how these expeirence cards work. They even tell you straight up when you buy them how they work, etc. I know this, and I only use mine when we visit over there a handful of times out of the year. Bottom line, if this girl thought she might have been low on the card, she should have carried the full amount in cash on her, or brought a credit card with her. Bottom line, both her and her family knew better, but chose to make a big fucking deal about it.

If it were a tourist visitng a B&B over there, and honestly didn't know any better, I'd have more sympathy. But in NO WAY am I sticking up for BC Ferries, they've taken too much of my money over the years, for sub-par service. They can suck it.

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by Marco911

Too bad you don't have anything to back up your claim. So I win. Again.

BC Ferries chief says stranded passenger could have been treated differently - The Globe and Mail

The president and CEO of BC Ferries says more flexibility could have been shown in the case of a 20-year-old customer who was stranded in Nanaimo overnight because she was 10 cents short in payment for a fare.

“Sometimes all big companies get to a place where you have your policies in place and your employees do the best job they can of following the policies, but our job is to give our front-line employees the flexibility to deal with those sorts of situations,” Mike Corrigan said in an interview on Monday.

There were also at least three callers to the Bill Good show during the segment on this story, who said they'd been allowed to use cash to cover the difference when their Experience Card was short... one who claimed she'd done it several times. I can look up the podcast for you, if you really want, although you'll have to listen to it on your own time; I'm not your personal prove-Marco-wrong transcription service.

[Marco911]

Originally Posted by Soundy

BC Ferries chief says stranded passenger could have been treated differently - The Globe and Mail

Actually it confirms what I wrote about the employee following policy.

There were also at least three callers to the Bill Good show during the segment on this story, who said they'd been allowed to use cash to cover the difference when their Experience Card was short... one who claimed she'd done it several times.

The Experience card doesn't entitle you to a discount on all the ferry routes. These callers may have not been on the same route as this woman.

[PiuYi]

“Sometimes all big companies get to a place where you have your policies in place and your employees do the best job they can of following the policies, but our job is to give our front-line employees the flexibility to deal with those sorts of situations,” Mike Corrigan said in an interview on Monday.

there's a fuzzy line between "flexibility" and breaking policy and getting written up... in this case it's "flexibility", in another case, the employee is breaking policy, it's totally up in the air and not always clearly defined, and not every employee is willing to risk that

also, front-line employees are not all the same rank, maybe a supervisor helped the callers do a cash+card combo, whereas the 10cent woman had a regular low seniority employee help her

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by Marco911

Actually it confirms what I wrote about the employee following policy.

It also backs up what I wrote: that officially or not, it IS allowed.

Which means that when you claimed I had nothing to back up that statement, you were wrong. Again.

The Experience card doesn't entitle you to a discount on all the ferry routes. These callers may have not been on the same route as this woman.

Not even relevant. The issue has nothing to do with discounts or routes; it has to do with using cash to make up the difference when the Experience Card falls short.

Keep digging, buddy, you've almost got yourself a hole big enough to drop that pathetic old overhyped Volkswagen of yours into.

[drunkrussian]

it's not necessarily bc ferries' fault. it's a case by case basis and depends on the employee currently working there. that's the person who refused the ten cents and is a piece of shit.

i've been to starbucks where i'm 10 cents short and felt like a fool, and the barista just said "all good" and let it slide. 10 cents was 5% of the price of my coffee...significantly more than 0.1% in this case...just lack of human decency

[dinosaur]

Didn't want to start a new thread, so i'll add this here:

BC Ferries under fire for giving $300 worth of gift cards to each employee | Globalnews.ca

Almost 1 million....