Addicted2Travel

I need help from some Italy experts. I am leaving for Italy on Monday, 3/20. I attempted to book some train tickets on Trenitalia's website. But I forgot to advise my credit card company that I would be traveling abroad and they put a fraud alert on my card. I have since straightened out this issue with my credit card company. But, in the meantime, I thought my credit card was just being declined on the Trenitalia site when what had actually happened was Trenitalia had suspended my account for the fraud alert, as well. So, attempted to book the same ticket twice. Now there are two charges showing up on my credit card account for he same ticket but I have no reservation code for the tickets because of my account suspension on Trenitalia. In effect, I have been charged for two train tickets that I do not have. There is only a European contact phone number on the website and I have emailed the Trenitalia helpdesk but have received no reply. My credit card company is telling me that I need to straighten the issue out with the merchant. Does anyone know how I can effectively get a hold of Trenitalia to straighten this issue out? Would I be better off to wait until I actually get to Italy and appeal to the clerk at the front desk of my hotel to call on my behalf? I suppose I should mention, at this point, that I do not speak fluent Italian. The trip for which I charged the tickets is not until the fourth day of my trip so, if necessary, I do have a little bit of room to work once I get to Italy if that would be more convenient. But I would also prefer not to spend the first few days of my vacation attempting to get a ticketing error cleared up instead of actually getting to see Italy.

laartista

Just an idea because I'm not great with these things. Could you just get your tickets in Italy, new ones and then contest the old charges with your credit card company. If you contest I think THEY have to contact the merchant and if the tickets were never picked up and used it would show you couldn't get them. Just a thought.

outwardbound

Thank you for posting this message. We seem to be living parallel lives. I am also going to Italy next week and tried to buy tickets on the Trenitalia website. My card was also denied and I had no idea why. I ultimately decided to stop trying and just buy my tickets once I got to Italy. When I read your post, I decided to call the credit card company just to make sure everything was OK and there were no charges on my card. Hopefully you will be able to resolve your issue once you get to Italy. I'm sure they have English speaking agents that can straighten things out for you. Of course, it might also be easier to just buy additional tickets once in Italy and dispute the other charges again with your credit card company once you return. I hope everything works out and perhaps we'll inadvertantly run into each other on our travels!

Thanks again.

Housemartin

I had the exact same thing happen to me yesterday. I was told by my credit card company (AMEX) that they routinely put charges on international websites on hold for fraud. AMEX eventually credited the charge back to the card, but only after a long, involved explanation as to what had happened. Perhaps you should try to make another run at your credit card company?

Intrepid1

You have used your CC and the services you were charged for were not, and won't be, delivered. IMO it is the CC company which needs to settle THAT part of the issue..non-delivery of goods and services. This is not "fraud" but simple non-delivery.

Addicted2Travel

Outwardbound, it seems there is an entire population of us. Daisy58 also posted in another thread that she encountered the same problem. Thanks all for the vice about going back to my credit card company. I did write them a rather lengthy email message but have received no response. I really didn't want to call them back because the agent I spoke with, who was a supervisor, was less than cooperative or helpful. Like pretty much everyone else who has had this happen, I've just decided to purchase the train tickets once I get to Italy.