[Patricklarvie]

TAM airlines has taken thousands of dollars of my money, hours of my time and refuses to acknowledge or respond to my complaint.

I attempted to purchase a J class ticket from San Francisco to São Paulo on their website. After entering all the data they asked for and hitting "enter", i received an error message telling me that the transaction had failed and that I should re-enter my credit card details. I did so only to receive the same message a second time. I gave up.

The next day, I noticed that $11,000 had been blocked from my credit card - it didn't appear as an expense, but it was missing from my credit line. I called my credit card company and sure enough, this sum corresponded to the two failed attempts to purchase the ticket.

I was left with no ticket, no reservation and $11,000 gone from my credit line. I asked the credit card company to intervene to correct the situation. They did - they called TAM and despite the difficulties their telephone sales personnel presented (asking again for the credit card number, refusing to cancel the transaction), they were able to reverse the transactions.

I was able to obtain a reservation from TAM, but only by paying more money than they had charged on their website. Since my schedule did not permit me to travel on other dates, and the airline I would ordinarily use did not have seats, I had little choice but to pay.

I tried to file a complaint with TAM, but they wouldn't take my complaint unless I had a Brazilian CPF (the US equivalent would be a Social Security number). I called back and asked to speak with someone who could speak English, which was the only way to get past this hurdle.

I asked for:
- An apology from TAM airlines.
- An explanation of why their website puts out unhelpful error messages that make the problem worse
- Reimbursement for the difference between what I had been quoted online and what I was asked to pay over the phone.
- Compensation for the frustration and lost time.

I received:
- A form letter saying that I should join TAM's Frequent Flyer program, as this would make using their website much easier.
- An explanation saying that the problem was my credit card, and they were just trying to protect me.

Obviously, I'm still furious. Not only did they fail to ensure that their website was able to sell tickets, delivered error messages that help users or provide a way to recover from errors, they appear to have hired a clairvoyant in order to bring Kafka back from the dead and put him in charge of their public relations.

I'm sorry I have to deal with this airline and I find it hard to believe I'm the only one who has had this experience.