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¿Where can Greyhound passengers complain?
... info request ....
Dear IndyBay readers,
My friend Bee travelled from San Francisco, CA,
to Reno, NV,
over the past weekend,
by Greyhoind bus.
On the way there, the bus had an unscheduled three-hour delay;
and the same thing happened on the way back.
Greyhound didn't compensate the passengers.
Where can my friend complain about this?
Which federal or state agency oversees Greyhound bus lines?
What are the chances of a complaint leading to action?
[ My biased GUESS is that Uncle Sam may care, somewhat,
about airline and railroad passengers (since many of them have money).
But I doubt that the feds would care about Greyhound passengers, who tend to be poor.
I hope my pessimism is mistaken. ]
Please post replies
as "comments".
Thanks,
San Franciscan
Monday, 12 June 2006
.........
My friend Bee travelled from San Francisco, CA,
to Reno, NV,
over the past weekend,
by Greyhoind bus.
On the way there, the bus had an unscheduled three-hour delay;
and the same thing happened on the way back.
Greyhound didn't compensate the passengers.
Where can my friend complain about this?
Which federal or state agency oversees Greyhound bus lines?
What are the chances of a complaint leading to action?
[ My biased GUESS is that Uncle Sam may care, somewhat,
about airline and railroad passengers (since many of them have money).
But I doubt that the feds would care about Greyhound passengers, who tend to be poor.
I hope my pessimism is mistaken. ]
Please post replies
as "comments".
Thanks,
San Franciscan
Monday, 12 June 2006
.........
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Here are a few things that happened to us. We pulled into Minneapolis and everyone got off to use the bathroom. We got back into the line to reboard, and this line included about 20 new people who had bought tickets. Greyhound has no idea how many people are already on the incoming bus when they sell tickets, so the 'excess' people in line have to sit and wait for the next bus in 3 hours. We were towards the end, so they directed some of the new people to sit in our seats where we had our coats and bags, and the driver didn't comprehend that we were reboarding, and tried to shut the door on us. We essentially had to get angry and have one person stand in front of the bus and have the other force our way on to grab our stuff from where the new people were sitting. Back at the ticket stand, the other people who couldn't get on were dutifully trooping back to get ticket refunds (if you pay with a check, you can only get 90% of cost!), and we complained and got $5 candy counter vouchers. Later I wrote to the company to complain, and they send us $80 ticket vouchers, which was nice and unexpected. It's sort of like Greyhound just has structural problems.
Phoenix was a totally miserable station where they were humidifying the 100F air, which made it worse. There was an hour long line of really poor people leading to one ticket agent. AT the loading dock, there were about four lines forming at 8 doors, and when you asked people in the lines what the destination for that bus was, they were for all sorts of different places, because no staff had announced what the line was for. So I picked one. There was no system of 'first come, first served' so you had to stay in the line and couldn't go sit in a chair, which is painful for elderly or people with kids. When the bus to Tucson came, the driver scanned the scene of ~120 people who wanted to board and did 'women and children first', which caused fights to break out. Some of the poor people essentially would have to wait hours for subsequent buses to show up.
Greyhound will do things like out of necessity, pushing out all the passengers at 2am in Fargo to wait for a new driver. There was a lady in our bus dying of cancer, and she patiently was waiting in line. In Cleveland, the staff was abusive. They told us to wait in a reboarding line for a bus in an hour, and three hours later things were barely starting to move. Even though we view ourself as laid-back non-whiners, there were several occasions where me and my friend were the only assertive people who finally broke down and complained. This totally came from the fact that we are middle class, and the working class people who ride more often were more used to the abuse and not in the mood to complain. Finally, about 40% of Greyhounds have someone with a personality disorder onboard. The drivers get worn down by them, and delight in cases where they get to kick them out at a rest stop for getting drunk or breaking a rule.