BC Ferries refuses woman 10 cents short on ferry fare

[bing]

A ferry worker that needs to go in for re-training and the policy on the cards needs to be changed. The negative publicity is worth far more than being .10 short when there's already profit calculated in the fare.

[Manic!]

Originally Posted by duy-

would it be bc ferries' fault or the employee there? i mean if it were me working, id just waive her pass, if the machine wont allow me to process 25cents plus her card then she gets a free pass in my books.

You can't get on the ferry without a boarding pass. You can't get a boarding pass without the system receiving payment.

It is stupid losing a $20 sale over 10 cents. I let customers who are short go all the time. Some profit is better than no profit.

[vantrip]

fuk bc ferries and their bs, i remember the days when it cost less than $10 per person and $30 for cars, used to be on the island every weekend, but haven't been their in so many years because of the prices.

[hal0g0dv2]

fuk the ferries
swim

[Timpo]

Originally Posted by hal0g0dv2

fuk the ferries
swim

swimming isn't realistic...

here are some realistic alternatives..

[kwy]

fucking bureaucrats

[4444]

Originally Posted by Mancini

That would solve this problem? Just like the way gas stations are ok with being underpaid. /sarcasm
Posted via RS Mobile

Gas stations run on tiny margins - money's made on the ancillary services/sales. Not sure why you think gas station and ferries are the same business model.

A ferry has high fixed cost and extremely low variable cost, relatively. Thus, if you had capacity, any logical business student in Econ 101 or whatever course would tell you to accept pretty much any payment for a marginal traveller - it will add to their gross profit.

If you under pay for gasoline, the gas station will likely lose money as the sale is almost entirely variable cost, so I can understand them not wanting your business at all - again, not sure why you think you can come on here, attempt some weak arse comparison with a /sarcasm line and think you've made a valid point.

Please come back with an "underpayment /sarcasm" point that is actually valid

And privatization would hopefully make a company run on profits, thus would care about profits, and thus have the mindset that marginal dollars, at whatever level are better than no dollars. It would also eliminate unprofitbale routes, or make those people (the significant minority) pay a much higher price, simple as that - would be a leaner machine not bankrolled by Johnny taxpayer over here

[PiuYi]

I don't know why people are getting so riled up about this... yes, BC ferries is a shitty run operation, but in this instance I don't think they did anything wrong

the woman knew how much it cost to take the ferry, didn't have enough money, so she didn't get to ride the ferry. what part of that is wrong?

I don't care if you're 10c short or 1 penny short, if you're short you're short. it would be NICE of BC ferries to have let her on, but there's nothing wrong with refusing a passenger that didn't pay like everybody else.

Regarding the cash+card combo, I don't know how their POS system works, maybe the system won't let the employee do a cash+card combo. So her hands are tied. In most cases, it's not the customer service agent's fault. They have rules to follow as well, and can't risk their job just so somebody who didn't have enough money or the right payment method could get a cheaper ride.


don't let your hate for BC ferries interfere with your judgement with this specific case

[bing]

^you obviously don't understand what customer service means. This situation could have been easily solved by asking for a manager or supervisor for authorization. There are 'take a penny leave a penny' trays all over the city and I've even seen employees at Tim Hortons still give people their meals when they were .15 cents short. I'm indifferent to the company and looking at it purely as a situation if I was in management. It could be at another business for all I care.

[BBMme]

Oh man, if that happened to me, I would be pretty pissed. I ferry home every weekend. Thank goodness for credit cards
Posted via RS Mobile

[dlo]

^^^ you obviously are missing the point lol, its for fucking 10 cents for christs sake... A woman was left over night because of 10 fucking cents and now BCferries have even worse publicity because of this lol, if they let it slide none of this would had came up, the woman had no other option
Posted via RS Mobile

[quasi]

Originally Posted by PiuYi

I don't know why people are getting so riled up about this... yes, BC ferries is a shitty run operation, but in this instance I don't think they did anything wrong

the woman knew how much it cost to take the ferry, didn't have enough money, so she didn't get to ride the ferry. what part of that is wrong?

I don't care if you're 10c short or 1 penny short, if you're short you're short. it would be NICE of BC ferries to have let her on, but there's nothing wrong with refusing a passenger that didn't pay like everybody else.

Regarding the cash+card combo, I don't know how their POS system works, maybe the system won't let the employee do a cash+card combo. So her hands are tied. In most cases, it's not the customer service agent's fault. They have rules to follow as well, and can't risk their job just so somebody who didn't have enough money or the right payment method could get a cheaper ride.


don't let your hate for BC ferries interfere with your judgement with this specific case

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.

[quasi]

Double Post

[Marco911]

Originally Posted by bing

^you obviously don't understand what customer service means. This situation could have been easily solved by asking for a manager or supervisor for authorization. There are 'take a penny leave a penny' trays all over the city and I've even seen employees at Tim Hortons still give people their meals when they were .15 cents short. I'm indifferent to the company and looking at it purely as a situation if I was in management. It could be at another business for all I care.

Nope, that's often not how modern pay by card systems work. You often can't do a partial transaction if the fare is fixed, and the operator can't change the amount to take from the card. Even HK's famed octopus system will completely reject a card transaction and you'll have to pay the fare fully if you try to get on a bus or minibus once your value is negative.

[Marco911]

Handled differently as in the girl could use an ATM/Debit or credit card to purchase her fare. If the girl was bitch-ass broke, too bad.

[bing]

Originally Posted by Marco911

Nope, that's often not how modern pay by card systems work. You often can't do a partial transaction if the fare is fixed, and the operator can't change the amount to take from the card.

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.

Even HK's famed octopus system will completely reject a card transaction and you'll have to pay the fare fully if you try to get on a bus or minibus once your value is negative.

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.

[bing]

Originally Posted by Marco911

Handled differently as in the girl could use an ATM/Debit or credit card to purchase her fare. If the girl was bitch-ass broke, too bad.

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

[RFlush]

Anyone else think about Spiderman when reading this story? Good thing no one's uncle died...
Posted via RS Mobile

[PiuYi]

Originally Posted by dlo

^^^ you obviously are missing the point lol, its for fucking 10 cents for christs sake... A woman was left over night because of 10 fucking cents and now BCferries have even worse publicity because of this lol, if they let it slide none of this would had came up, the woman had no other option
Posted via RS Mobile

I understand it's for 10 cents, but you also have to understand that BC ferries isn't a 5 star luxury resort. Customer service is not their goal. They operate like a vending machine. You purchase a ticket, you get a ride across the strait. Their market is fairly inelastic. It doesn't matter if 100% of the population hates their service, the choices for getting to and from the island are pretty limited.... so knowing that, they don't give a shit about customer service and will only let you ride the ferry if you have exactly the amount they charge.

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.

I've worked in customer service for the past 7 years, and it's not always what it seems. I get alot of customers that are regulars who always want to bend the rules. "I come here 3x a day so I'm only paying this much" well... no, you're not. You want the service, you pay the price. If you bend the rules too much, people will start abusing the system.

BC Ferries is forced to apologize since this has blown up so big. A quick apology goes a long way to quell this.

Also, for all we know, the woman probably showed up and demanded to be let on the ferry despite not having had enough money. Not everybody asks nicely. If she did (I don't know if she did or not) she may have had a ride and been let on. Who knows.

[Energy]

Originally Posted by PiuYi

I understand it's for 10 cents, but you also have to understand that BC ferries isn't a 5 star luxury resort. Customer service is not their goal. They operate like a vending machine. You purchase a ticket, you get a ride across the strait. Their market is fairly inelastic. It doesn't matter if 100% of the population hates their service, the choices for getting to and from the island are pretty limited.... so knowing that, they don't give a shit about customer service and will only let you ride the ferry if you have exactly the amount they charge.



I've worked in customer service for the past 7 years, and it's not always what it seems. I get alot of customers that are regulars who always want to bend the rules. "I come here 3x a day so I'm only paying this much" well... no, you're not. You want the service, you pay the price. If you bend the rules too much, people will start abusing the system.

BC Ferries is forced to apologize since this has blown up so big. A quick apology goes a long way to quell this.

Also, for all we know, the woman probably showed up and demanded to be let on the ferry despite not having had enough money. Not everybody asks nicely. If she did (I don't know if she did or not) she may have had a ride and been let on. Who knows.

You can't compare what happened to a vending machine transaction. There was a BC Ferries employee involved... A human element that had the power to let the girl on or not. A vending machine is a machine, it's black and white with no options.

You're correct to say we don't know exactly what happened and the girl might have been rude but we are discussing this based on what has been reported.

Cool story bro moment: I worked in customer service for 4 years and know what you're talking about when regulars want to bend the rules. Again there is a human element here, if a customer comes up to me and says "oh I'm so sorry I'm 10 cents short, can I pay you tomorrow" and are nice about it then I just let it go. If someone comes up to me and says "I'm a regular here and deserve not to be charged extra for cream cheese because I've never been charged for years and the new policy is stupid"... Just being a regular isn't enough if you're rude and act entitled.

[Gridlock]

Originally Posted by Energy

"I'm a regular here and deserve not to be charged extra for cream cheese because I've never been charged for years and the new policy is stupid"... Just being a regular isn't enough if you're rude and act entitled.

Years ago at a cafe I worked at, we had this crusty bitch get all mad when we changed the caesar salad dressing from one that tasted like oily shit to one that tasted like a proper fucking salad.

Made a stink to the point of going on and on about it to the point where we all backed away and let the counter girl handle it. Oops. She gets the owner to deal with it. Oops again.

The result of these people not telling this woman to stick it was that I was to now stock both types of salad dressing.

So I did....

Once.

You know that crusty bottle in the back of your fridge that you always forget you have, but you are too lazy to throw it out?

She bought from it like twice a month. I laughed every time. Served it personal too.

[Lomac]

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.

Most companies don't allow credit cards to be used over the phone anymore. Also, their POS system may not allow for cards that don't get swiped/inserted. And, as other have already mentioned, their POS system may not allow for different transactions for the same sale.

It's one thing to let someone on a bus if they're a few cents short of a ticket. BC Ferries, however, works on a system that requires everyone to be accounted for by tickets that are scanned. And I don't believe that those tickets can be given out via goodwill at the till.

[dinosaur]

Originally Posted by PiuYi

I understand it's for 10 cents, but you also have to understand that BC ferries isn't a 5 star luxury resort. Customer service is not their goal. They operate like a vending machine. You purchase a ticket, you get a ride across the strait. Their market is fairly inelastic. It doesn't matter if 100% of the population hates their service, the choices for getting to and from the island are pretty limited.... so knowing that, they don't give a shit about customer service and will only let you ride the ferry if you have exactly the amount they charge.

No man...BC Ferries lost their title of simple point to point transportation the day they put "luxury" dining and a fucking Spa on-board and begun to offer "BC Ferries Vacations".

We aren't talking about some 3rd world steerage-level boat...millions have been pumped into design, amenities, and adverting. Customer service IS their goal. I am guessing (yes, guessing....no need to skewer if there are official stats out there) that 70% of ridership comes from elective reasons...meaning, people are CHOOSING to go to the islands and CHOOSING BC Ferries. There is a reason ridership is down....

[Gridlock]

Well shit, as we go round and round here.

BC Ferries DID privatize to a degree several years ago. We had a dead end crown corp that hemorrhaged money, so the bureaucrats did what the bureaucrats do...get that shit off the books.

So to everyone that says "privatization is the answer" well, yes and no. You can have a BC Ferries that makes money. All those pricey "daily" trips that has a boat not filled to capacity becomes an income only boat when you do it every 2 or 3 days. Got a problem in between? Move off the fucking island hippy.

Oh wait! That's just what some people are suggesting! Convenient.

Revscene argument#1:It's fun taking things away from those that aren't you.

People moved to the island under the idea that there was a boat to service them. For some of the first nations groups in the north islands, its the only way in or out to their ancestral homes.

Revscene argument #2(oh shit, we should all know where I'm going) It's all good to say fuck the natives when its convenient, and see #1 above, especially if its not you.

So while we're blowing this all out of proportion, and the armchair rocket scientists have completely developed a brand new business model for BC Ferries, let's get back to the item at hand...what are we going to do about that pesky system that has a cashier that has no capacity or empowerment to make a call on anything out of the ordinary.

[gars]

London's Oyster card also allows you always to get home. Unless you have already gone into the negative - the card will always allow you the maximum length distance, which I think is around £5? That's just a one way fare though - but it prevents people from getting stranded when you're trying to catch a late last train, and the fare attendant windows have all closed. I would've hoped that our system would have something similar. This takes into account the fact that a lot of younger people don't have credit cards - and lots of people still reload their card using cash.