Bad experience with Lori Cunningham/Skyscraper Tours

After the recent thread about ethical TAs and people's responses about
various TAs on the newsgroup I have decided to speak up. I tried to use
Lori Cunningham for a 2004 Alaskan Cruise-Tour with disastrous results.
I am out $483 and at this time have no desire to cruise to Alaska,
which I once considered a dream trip. This trip was to celebrate my
husband's and my 20th anniversary and was very important to us. It
represented both a big financial and emotional investment.

I am a pretty peaceable person and usually don't like to make waves, but
decided that in this case it was important to speak up. Maybe someone
else will be spared both the monetary loss and emotional distress I have
suffered.

You're welcome to view the details of my experience on this web site:

http://www.mindspring.com/~mefine/skyscraper/

Margaret
--
Margaret Fine

Well, I cannot comment on the substance of your complaint but I would like to
complement you on the way you laid it out in WEB page format. With links and
everything. Very easy to follow the time line.

Cal Ford
Lido Deck Cruises


In article . net, Margaret Fine
says...

After the recent thread about ethical TAs and people's responses about
various TAs on the newsgroup I have decided to speak up. I tried to use
Lori Cunningham for a 2004 Alaskan Cruise-Tour with disastrous results.
I am out $483 and at this time have no desire to cruise to Alaska,
which I once considered a dream trip. This trip was to celebrate my
husband's and my 20th anniversary and was very important to us. It
represented both a big financial and emotional investment.

I am a pretty peaceable person and usually don't like to make waves, but
decided that in this case it was important to speak up. Maybe someone
else will be spared both the monetary loss and emotional distress I have
suffered.

You're welcome to view the details of my experience on this web site:

http://www.mindspring.com/~mefine/skyscraper/

Margaret
--
Margaret Fine

Looks clearly like the tour was booked in error for the wrong year and then all
the penalities were in force. Clearly the TA's fault it looks like from the
surface. I would be sure to get that refund. Good luck to you. Next time
forget the land package- very very easy and a LOT cheaper going on your own.
Also RCI would not be a choice for me, no College Fjords and usually no
naturalists on board.

I trust you placed all inappropriate charges in dispute with your credit
card company. In writing, of course, to protect your rights.

"Margaret Fine" wrote in message
ink.net...
After the recent thread about ethical TAs and people's responses about
various TAs on the newsgroup I have decided to speak up. I tried to use
Lori Cunningham for a 2004 Alaskan Cruise-Tour with disastrous results.
I am out $483 and at this time have no desire to cruise to Alaska,
which I once considered a dream trip. This trip was to celebrate my
husband's and my 20th anniversary and was very important to us. It
represented both a big financial and emotional investment.

I am a pretty peaceable person and usually don't like to make waves, but
decided that in this case it was important to speak up. Maybe someone
else will be spared both the monetary loss and emotional distress I have
suffered.

You're welcome to view the details of my experience on this web site:

http://www.mindspring.com/~mefine/skyscraper/

Margaret
--
Margaret Fine

Hi Margaret

Your post(s) and website are designed to hurt my business. You seem to have
left out a few important points.

1. When you first contacted me about Alaska 2004, you asked specifically for
cruisetour 15. This is a VERY important note - you asked for a specific
cruisetour - number 15. Since the cruisetours had not been loaded in the system
with Royal Caribbean, I emailed you the cruisetour 15 itinerary for the 2003
season. Yes, in hindsight, I should have noted that the itinerary provided was
based on Royal Caribbean 2003 itinerary and was subject to change. What you
left out of this is that I strongly suggested that you wait until the brochures
arrived for the 2004 season so that you would be sure that you had the correct
cruisetour. But you did not want to do this - and provided information to book
Cruisetour 15 based on 2003 information. So, I did as you requested and booked
cruisetour 15.

2. NOW, Francesca did make a mistake and booked you for 2003 - not 2004. This
was a human error and was corrected immediately to place you on cruisetour 15
for 2004. These mistakes can happen.

3. When the cruisetour 15 was confirmed by Royal Caribbean for 2004, I sent the
itinerary to you via mail - to have you verify that this is the cruisetour that
you wanted for 2004. Because the brochures were not available - I wanted you
to confirm that cruisetour 15 for 2004 was what you wanted.

4. You received the itinerary in the mail and immediately called Francesca to
cancel the cruisetour 15 - because it was not what you wanted. This was a
hastily made decision - and everything could have been corrected at this point -
if you had allowed me to mail the brochure to you - so that you could find the
cruise tour that you DID want. But you did not wait for me to suggest this -
you just cancelled the cruisetour w/out seeking advice.

5. As for me not cooperating with Travel Guard, that is a flat out lie. I
faxed Travel Guard repeatedly to have everything corrected for you. BUT Travel
Guard notified me that you were intervening in the process and because of this -
they were confused and were reviewing the situation. And Margaret, I informed
Steve of this - and asked him to let me handle the situation with Travel Guard -
but to no avail.

6. Another situation that you left out, is that Steve asked me to help you find
the cruisetour that would fit your needs (through another cruise line - after
the Royal Caribbean cruise was cancelled). But because of the communication
between us, and your insistance to refuse my help, I advised him that it was
probably better if he found another travel agent. He did not seem happy that I
suggested this.

So, there are always 2 sides to a story. Your slanderous website and postings
are simply that and appropriate measures will be taken. You know that I did
everything that I could to try and help you out.


Lori Cunningham
http://www.skyscrapertours.com

In article . net, Margaret Fine
says...

After the recent thread about ethical TAs and people's responses about
various TAs on the newsgroup I have decided to speak up. I tried to use
Lori Cunningham for a 2004 Alaskan Cruise-Tour with disastrous results.
I am out $483 and at this time have no desire to cruise to Alaska,
which I once considered a dream trip. This trip was to celebrate my
husband's and my 20th anniversary and was very important to us. It
represented both a big financial and emotional investment.

I am a pretty peaceable person and usually don't like to make waves, but
decided that in this case it was important to speak up. Maybe someone
else will be spared both the monetary loss and emotional distress I have
suffered.

You're welcome to view the details of my experience on this web site:

--
Margaret Fine

Lori Cunningham wrote:

Hi Margaret

Your post(s) and website are designed to hurt my business. You seem to have
left out a few important points.

Not true. It is designed to help other people see that I've had
problems with you and they can make their decision accordingly.

1. When you first contacted me about Alaska 2004, you asked specifically for
cruisetour 15. This is a VERY important note - you asked for a specific
cruisetour - number 15. Since the cruisetours had not been loaded in the system
with Royal Caribbean, I emailed you the cruisetour 15 itinerary for the 2003
season. Yes, in hindsight, I should have noted that the itinerary provided was
based on Royal Caribbean 2003 itinerary and was subject to change. What you
left out of this is that I strongly suggested that you wait until the brochures
arrived for the 2004 season so that you would be sure that you had the correct
cruisetour. But you did not want to do this - and provided information to book
Cruisetour 15 based on 2003 information. So, I did as you requested and booked
cruisetour 15.


That is not correct. My note specifically said "My husband and I want
to take a alaskan cruise tour in July, 2004. We want to go on Royal
Caribbean, we want a cruisetour similar to the one they have in this
year's 2003 Alaska vacation planner: Package 15 on Legend of the Seas
which is a 1 night Anchorage, 3 nights Denali, 1 night Talkeetna
southbound cruise. We would want to make sure that the cruise was over
July 7th, a special day to us. I have a couple of questions that maybe
you can help me with. "

Note I said "similar" to this year's cruise tour 15 not that I wanted
cruise tour 15. An important distinction. I also had mentioned the
stops on the itinerary which I feel are far more important than an
arbitrary number.

You NEVER strongly suggested that I wait. I have all of your e-mails
you sent and you never said wait. You never said wait when I spoke to
you May 15th and you took my info. In fact I asked you if it was too
early to book and you said no!

2. NOW, Francesca did make a mistake and booked you for 2003 - not 2004. This
was a human error and was corrected immediately to place you on cruisetour 15
for 2004. These mistakes can happen.

And why was I never told? I had a right to know especially since it has
caused me problems in receiving a refund.


3. When the cruisetour 15 was confirmed by Royal Caribbean for 2004, I sent the
itinerary to you via mail - to have you verify that this is the cruisetour that
you wanted for 2004. Because the brochures were not available - I wanted you
to confirm that cruisetour 15 for 2004 was what you wanted.

You never had me verify anything. By the time we received a printed
itinerary, you had already booked it several weeks earlier. It was
already too late at that point to get my travleguard money back.

4. You received the itinerary in the mail and immediately called Francesca to
cancel the cruisetour 15 - because it was not what you wanted. This was a
hastily made decision - and everything could have been corrected at this point -
if you had allowed me to mail the brochure to you - so that you could find the
cruise tour that you DID want. But you did not wait for me to suggest this -
you just cancelled the cruisetour w/out seeking advice.

Why was this a hastily made decision? You had us coming in a day
earlier than we had asked, to a city we were not sure if we could come
in to, for a longer cruise. The itinerary was significantly different
from the one that you had first offered us. You had sent me an
itinerary with 2004 dates. I called RCI and they said they did not offer
that itinerary and that they were not offering anything similar in 2004.

Why would I want the advice of someone who had already sent me an
itinerary that clearly showed 2004 dates when that cruise did not exist?
You never said it was speculative. At no point did you ever say
anything about mailing me a brochure, that I should wait, that it was
too soon. You sent the itinerary to me as if it were fact.

5. As for me not cooperating with Travel Guard, that is a flat out lie. I
faxed Travel Guard repeatedly to have everything corrected for you. BUT Travel
Guard notified me that you were intervening in the process and because of this -
they were confused and were reviewing the situation. And Margaret, I informed
Steve of this - and asked him to let me handle the situation with Travel Guard -
but to no avail.


No, I'd say it is you who are being less than truthful. I was speaking
with TravelGuard because you had not made a decent attempt to get me the
$153 refund I was entitled to. As for trying to get them to repeatedly
make the corrections you should know that Travelguard keeps very good
records and up to the point of the end of June they had one telephone
call with Francesca. They told her you needed to fax a letter and they
said you never did. After that when we spoke to TravelGuard they said
that you were refusing to allow us to cancel the insurance. If you had
agreed to that they would have done so.

6. Another situation that you left out, is that Steve asked me to help you find
the cruisetour that would fit your needs (through another cruise line - after
the Royal Caribbean cruise was cancelled). But because of the communication
between us, and your insistance to refuse my help, I advised him that it was
probably better if he found another travel agent. He did not seem happy that I
suggested this.


I'll let Steve respond to this one since he spoke to you.

So, there are always 2 sides to a story. Your slanderous website and postings
are simply that and appropriate measures will be taken. You know that I did
everything that I could to try and help you out.

I cannot see how telling my truthful experience with your company can be
called slanderous. Since I can back up everything I have said I can't
see how it can be slanderous. I know that you did NOT do everything you
could to help me out. If you did everything you could to help me, why
not just tell TravelGuard that an error had been made and agree to
cancel the insurance? You didn't even have to admit it was your error.
I feel you were being vindictive on that one.

I have only gotten excuses from you--it is always someone else's fault.
I think it is also interesting that you threaten me instead of trying
to make things right, which you have never offered to do. It doesn't
speak well of how you handle customer service issues.

Margaret

Lori Cunningham
http://www.skyscrapertours.com


--
Margaret Fine

Hi Margaret

The bottom line is that the last correspondence with you (or your husband) was
in July. At that point, I was in negotiations with Travel Guard to obtain your
refund. But Travel Guard said that they were dealing with you on this and it
was now out of my control. Since Travel Guard was dealing with you directly on
this, I thought that I would hear from you - if there was a problem. I did not
hear from you - you did not provide me the opportunity to help you out in the
insurance loss. Instead, you built a website, to publically discredit me and
my company which cannot be taken lightly.

A quick phone call from you - after Travel Guard told you what they were willing
to do, would have been the best option. I am a very reasonable person and one
of high integrity. I would have done my best to alleviate the situation. But I
was not given the chance.

I welcome a phone call from you now - and have always been willing to discuss
the situation.

One note: I would not have a successful cruise business (and one of the top 1%
with Royal Caribbean and Celebrity), if I made it a practice to ruin people's
vacations. I do make it a practice to correct any mistakes made - and arrive at
compensation - if the mistakes were our fault.

Lori Cunningham
http://www.skyscrapertours.com


In article . net, Margaret Fine
says...

Lori Cunningham wrote:

Hi Margaret

Your post(s) and website are designed to hurt my business. You seem to have
left out a few important points.

Not true. It is designed to help other people see that I've had
problems with you and they can make their decision accordingly.

1. When you first contacted me about Alaska 2004, you asked specifically for
cruisetour 15. This is a VERY important note - you asked for a specific
cruisetour - number 15. Since the cruisetours had not been loaded in the system
with Royal Caribbean, I emailed you the cruisetour 15 itinerary for the 2003
season. Yes, in hindsight, I should have noted that the itinerary provided was
based on Royal Caribbean 2003 itinerary and was subject to change. What you
left out of this is that I strongly suggested that you wait until the brochures
arrived for the 2004 season so that you would be sure that you had the correct
cruisetour. But you did not want to do this - and provided information to book
Cruisetour 15 based on 2003 information. So, I did as you requested and booked
cruisetour 15.


That is not correct. My note specifically said "My husband and I want
to take a alaskan cruise tour in July, 2004. We want to go on Royal
Caribbean, we want a cruisetour similar to the one they have in this
year's 2003 Alaska vacation planner: Package 15 on Legend of the Seas
which is a 1 night Anchorage, 3 nights Denali, 1 night Talkeetna
southbound cruise. We would want to make sure that the cruise was over
July 7th, a special day to us. I have a couple of questions that maybe
you can help me with. "

Note I said "similar" to this year's cruise tour 15 not that I wanted
cruise tour 15. An important distinction. I also had mentioned the
stops on the itinerary which I feel are far more important than an
arbitrary number.

You NEVER strongly suggested that I wait. I have all of your e-mails
you sent and you never said wait. You never said wait when I spoke to
you May 15th and you took my info. In fact I asked you if it was too
early to book and you said no!

2. NOW, Francesca did make a mistake and booked you for 2003 - not 2004. This
was a human error and was corrected immediately to place you on cruisetour 15
for 2004. These mistakes can happen.

And why was I never told? I had a right to know especially since it has
caused me problems in receiving a refund.


3. When the cruisetour 15 was confirmed by Royal Caribbean for 2004, I sent the
itinerary to you via mail - to have you verify that this is the cruisetour that
you wanted for 2004. Because the brochures were not available - I wanted you
to confirm that cruisetour 15 for 2004 was what you wanted.

You never had me verify anything. By the time we received a printed
itinerary, you had already booked it several weeks earlier. It was
already too late at that point to get my travleguard money back.

4. You received the itinerary in the mail and immediately called Francesca to
cancel the cruisetour 15 - because it was not what you wanted. This was a
hastily made decision - and everything could have been corrected at this point -
if you had allowed me to mail the brochure to you - so that you could find the
cruise tour that you DID want. But you did not wait for me to suggest this -
you just cancelled the cruisetour w/out seeking advice.

Why was this a hastily made decision? You had us coming in a day
earlier than we had asked, to a city we were not sure if we could come
in to, for a longer cruise. The itinerary was significantly different
from the one that you had first offered us. You had sent me an
itinerary with 2004 dates. I called RCI and they said they did not offer
that itinerary and that they were not offering anything similar in 2004.

Why would I want the advice of someone who had already sent me an
itinerary that clearly showed 2004 dates when that cruise did not exist?
You never said it was speculative. At no point did you ever say
anything about mailing me a brochure, that I should wait, that it was
too soon. You sent the itinerary to me as if it were fact.

5. As for me not cooperating with Travel Guard, that is a flat out lie. I
faxed Travel Guard repeatedly to have everything corrected for you. BUT Travel
Guard notified me that you were intervening in the process and because of this -
they were confused and were reviewing the situation. And Margaret, I informed
Steve of this - and asked him to let me handle the situation with Travel Guard -
but to no avail.


No, I'd say it is you who are being less than truthful. I was speaking
with TravelGuard because you had not made a decent attempt to get me the
$153 refund I was entitled to. As for trying to get them to repeatedly
make the corrections you should know that Travelguard keeps very good
records and up to the point of the end of June they had one telephone
call with Francesca. They told her you needed to fax a letter and they
said you never did. After that when we spoke to TravelGuard they said
that you were refusing to allow us to cancel the insurance. If you had
agreed to that they would have done so.

6. Another situation that you left out, is that Steve asked me to help you find
the cruisetour that would fit your needs (through another cruise line - after
the Royal Caribbean cruise was cancelled). But because of the communication
between us, and your insistance to refuse my help, I advised him that it was
probably better if he found another travel agent. He did not seem happy that I
suggested this.


I'll let Steve respond to this one since he spoke to you.

So, there are always 2 sides to a story. Your slanderous website and postings
are simply that and appropriate measures will be taken. You know that I did
everything that I could to try and help you out.

I cannot see how telling my truthful experience with your company can be
called slanderous. Since I can back up everything I have said I can't
see how it can be slanderous. I know that you did NOT do everything you
could to help me out. If you did everything you could to help me, why
not just tell TravelGuard that an error had been made and agree to
cancel the insurance? You didn't even have to admit it was your error.
I feel you were being vindictive on that one.

I have only gotten excuses from you--it is always someone else's fault.
I think it is also interesting that you threaten me instead of trying
to make things right, which you have never offered to do. It doesn't
speak well of how you handle customer service issues.

Margaret

Lori Cunningham
http://www.skyscrapertours.com


--
Margaret Fine

From: Lori Cunningham

The bottom line is that the last correspondence with you (or your husband)
was
in July.

I disagree ... I feel the bottom line is the discrepancy between your posting
this ...

"1. When you first contacted me about Alaska 2004, you asked specifically for
cruisetour 15. This is a VERY important note - you asked for a specific
cruisetour - number 15. "

and the poster Margaret posting this ...

"That is not correct. My note specifically said "My husband and I want
to take a alaskan cruise tour in July, 2004. We want to go on Royal
Caribbean, we want a cruisetour similar to the one they have in this
year's 2003 Alaska vacation planner: Package 15 on Legend of the Seas
which is a 1 night Anchorage, 3 nights Denali, 1 night Talkeetna
southbound cruise. We would want to make sure that the cruise was over
July 7th, a special day to us. I have a couple of questions that maybe
you can help me with. "

It appears she is quoting her note verbatim ... while you are misquoting one
part ...

one is correct ...

Personally, I have not gone through all that happened ... I don't really care
.... but your response ...where elsewhere you call her a liar ... whereas ... at
least on the surface there appears to be a misrepresentation on your part ...
is what bothers me ...

She seems to have her original memo to back things up ... do you have anything
to back your statement up ??


Be seeing you
In the Village
Number 6

I'm on the Fine's side, they have the written facts to back them up, the other
party doesn't subscribe to the theory of , "the buck stops here" but rather
to the "it was Francesca's fault and she no longer works here". ( altho I am
ultimately responsible...yeah)

On 27 Oct 2003 09:35:23 -0800, Lori Cunningham
wrote:

Instead, you built a website, to publically discredit me and
my company which cannot be taken lightly.

Neither should be overt threats on a public forum.

I welcome a phone call from you now - and have always been willing to discuss
the situation.

One minute, you threaten her, the next you want to "discuss" it? If
she has any brains, she would never call you since any and all
statements she might make, without the aid of counsel, could be held
against her in a court of law.

One note: I would not have a successful cruise business (and one of the top 1%
with Royal Caribbean and Celebrity), if I made it a practice to ruin people's
vacations.

Sounds to me like you are a volume first, service second agency to me.

I do make it a practice to correct any mistakes made - and arrive at
compensation - if the mistakes were our fault.

You haven't this time.