Eurostar’s customer service has gone off the rails

theguardian.com:

I was due to travel from London St Pancras to Paris for a three-day trip in July. The Eurostar train left an hour late, then broke down before it reached the Channel tunnel. We were stuck on board in stifling heat with no updates, no electricity and no air con for over an hour, before the train returned to St Pancras. There was no apology, or service information from Eurostar. At St Pancras, we were told to rebook a seat on the app, or join a huge queue at the ticket office. The app kept flashing error messages and was impossible to use. At 4pm, six hours after our original departure time, a staff member told me there were no seats available that day and we should make our own way to Paris. I ended up returning home and abandoning the trip.

Eurostar has given me a time-limited e-voucher in exchange for my ticket, instead of a refund. And my travel insurer, Holidaysafe, is refusing to pay for the cost of the hotel I’d booked in Paris, without a letter from Eurostar explaining the cause and length of the delay. I’ve provided a flyer which Eurostar staff distributed to passengers confirming the service had been cancelled. It claims it can’t contact Eurostar direct because of data protection. Eurostar is not replying.RS, Letchworth Garden City, Herts

Eurostar appears to have lost its grip on communications – 82% of customers on review website Trustpilot rate it as bad, and unresponsive customer service is the common theme. The company rolled out the favourite new corporate excuse when I asked why: the blame, it claims, lies squarely with Covid. Its contact centre is apparently still reeling from unprecedented call volumes during the lockdowns, and it is aware passengers are facing long waits to get through. What’s its