DO NOT BOOK WITH WICKED TRAVEL! Having been in Australia twice now I can speak from experience,…read moreyou are far better off booking your tours through a hostel or hotel, or going directly to the tour company involved. Some tour booking agencies are better than others, but Wicked Travel appears to be the worst of the walk-in lounge-style tour agencies.
I booked a Whitsundays tour with Wicked Travel and got a small satchel handed to me which I assumed contained a receipt for the 175 AUD I paid, and a trip voucher. Due to poor weather on the tour date, the tour was postponed twice and then cancelled indefinitely. I followed the instructions for requesting a refund, which was simply "email the head office and they'll refund the tour cost onto your credit card". After sending the email, the head office responded with what was effectively "that's not our problem, you need to get your refund from the Whitsundays people". What? Ok, fine. At this point I'm left to get the Whitsundays people in on the email, and only after multiple emails and getting a Whitsundays finance manager to directly say they don't have the money, does Wicked agreed to give me a refund.
Without any invoice, they deposit roughly 125 AUD into my account. I'm left scratching my head, because 125/175 = ~70%. Where'd the other 30% go? I email about this multiple times and get nothing but silence. One thing I've left out is that their head office uses one blanket email address (info@wickedtravel.com.au) for everything they do, so you can never see who you're emailing or who's responding. You have no idea if the person who previously responded to an email is the same person responding now, or who's handling your information. I voice a complaint about the lack of responsiveness regarding my refund amount, and am anonymously told through their blanket email address that my issue is "being investigated".
More than a month goes by and still no response. This is now nearly 3 months since my trip was cancelled, and I'm literally on the other side of the world still trying to find out what happened. I email again asking what's going on, and let them know with some slightly colorful language that I'm about to give them public negative reviews (like this!), and they proceed to lookup my facebook account and make cheeky jabbing comments about my profile pictures!
This is an all new level of unprofessionalism for me.
The next email they send me is a scathing, emotional email telling me that they didn't have to give me a refund at all because it was the Whitsundays company's responsibility, that I'm harassing them, and that "we will refund you [the rest of the full amount you paid] so you don't waste anymore of our time or cost our company [any] further money" Excuse me. All I did was ask a simple question about how my refund amount was calculated, and now I'm getting this kind of treatment, while being offered money to shut up. However, in their response, they finally included the answer as to how they arrived at my refund amount. They think I paid 145 AUD.
The trip I booked, on the Camira, costs 145 AUD if you have a backpacking membership. I did not. The non-membership price was 175 AUD, which is what I paid. But, after looking at the paperwork they gave me, there's no receipt or invoice in there at all.
I explain that I actually paid 175 AUD, which is why everything is off. Now I receive an email telling me that they requested my receipt, that I wasn't being responsive enough, and that I didn't provide them with the information they asked for. Oh, and that I was refusing their offer of a refund. Are they bloody serious?! This is first time any mention was made of any of this. However, I have no recourse to be asking for anything because I have no paperwork that proves anything.
But, I find their attitude towards me incredible. They take the tone that this is entirely my fault and that I'm the one causing problems. They also don't seem to understand that I don't want their refund to shut me up; I want the refund I rightfully deserved and they can keep their 15%. (Note, they offered me 22 AUD to shut up, but I should be getting around 25.50 AUD for my refund. It's small difference, but I'm on principles with this. I'm not going to take their money to shut up, I want my rightful refund and an apology)
Further, their attitude about the Whitsunday's people having my money was shocking. Why should I be tracking down their money? Pick up the damn phone and figure out where your own money is. I'm a customer, it isn't my responsibility to prove where their finances have gone.
So what's the takeaway from this? Use another agency to do your bookings. Your trip might not get cancelled like mine, but if you have even the slightest issue after you've booked your trip, you're going to have to deal with the same people I did. Save yourself the frustration and hassle, use someone else for your tour bookings.
