Never Pick a Fight With a Retired Greek

I have some free advice for corporations everywhere.

Add two questions to your customer complaint form.

How old are you?

Are you currently employed?

This is not discrimination.

It is risk assessment.

If the answers come back over sixty and retired or repurposed or not working, stop.

Do not send the automated reply.

Do not thank the customer for his patience.

Do not tell him that his feedback is important to you.

And under no circumstances write:

“Unfortunately, there is nothing further we can do.”

Pay the man.

Especially if he is Greek.

Because you have just encountered one of the most dangerous consumer demographics known to corporate civilization:

A you know what Greek with a legitimate grievance and time on his hands.

We have nowhere to be.

No boss is waiting.

No Monday morning meeting.

No quarterly report.

You, on the other hand, have departments, executives, terms and conditions, corporate addresses, consumer agencies, regulators, and somewhere, someone legally authorized to receive registered mail.

We have time to find all of them.

Booking.com was about to learn this.

This particular adventure began, as many of my adventures do, with Karen trusting me.

That was mistake number one.

We had planned an Ionian trip: Perdika overlooking Syvota, Paxoi, then Lefkada.

Three stops.

I successfully booked two of them.

The middle one eventually became Exhibit A.

The very short version is that Karen had fallen in love with Paxoi watching Maestro in Blue. I announced that I had found us a place in Longos and instantly became her hero.

We took the ferry from Igoumenitsa, arrived on Paxoi, drove to Longos, and eventually discovered that the house I had rented was near Aigio.

On the mainland.

Several hours away.

Hero to zero in one phone call.

I have already told that story in detail [here], including Karen briefly deciding that the Ionian Sea offered better accommodation than I did and setting off to become a mermaid.

What matters for this story is what happened next.

The people of Longos adopted us.

Ioanna started making calls. Maria joined in. One Dionysia led to another Dionysia. Christina appeared. Eventually Yiayia Sofia had somewhere for us to sleep.

Nobody knew us.

Nobody owed us anything.

Yet our problem became their problem.

They treated us less like confused tourists and more like relatives who had arrived unexpectedly and needed to be sorted out.

Paxoi recovered beautifully.

So did our vacation.

My €642 did not.

And that is where this story really begins.

When we returned home, I contacted Booking.com.

There had been a problem.

I would explain it.

They would investigate.

Someone would say:

“Ah. We see what happened.”

Refund.

Finished.

Apparently I had confused Booking.com Customer Service with Ioanna from Le Pareo.

Messages went unanswered.

I followed up.

More time passed.

Eventually I took the complaint to X.

And there Booking.com explained its position.

The reservation, they said, was for Lóngos in Achaea.

Paxoi had a similarly named place with a different accent.

The traveler was responsible for checking the location.

Ah.

An accent mark.

Their defense was an accent mark.

This was excellent news.

Because I am Greek.

If there is one person you should never challenge to investigate the placement of a Greek accent mark, it is a retired Greek.

I made coffee.

Then I started looking.

Booking.com’s own site showed Paxoi properties simply as Longos.

No accent.

Different searches produced different spellings.

Autocomplete could move the destination from Paxoi to mainland Lóngos.

The geography changed by hundreds of kilometers.

The little accent mark Booking.com had offered as the safeguard was not even used consistently by Booking.com.

Interesting.

Screenshot.

Save.

Next.

Then I went back through the messages I had exchanged with the host before the trip.

I had told him we were arriving on the ferry from Igoumenitsa.

I had asked about renting a motorboat.

I had asked about early check-in.

He answered.

What he did not say was:

“Nick, why are you taking a ferry to Paxoi? My house is near Aigio.”

Screenshot.

Save.

Next.

At this point Karen would occasionally walk past my desk.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

This is what retired men say when they are assembling evidence.

One thing led to another.

The booking confirmation.

The bank payment.

The Perdika reservation before Paxoi.

The Lefkada reservation after Paxoi.

The ferry tickets.

The host messages.

The unanswered complaints.

Booking.com’s response.

The search reproductions.

The no-show message.

Even the invitation Booking.com later sent asking me to review a property it already knew I had never stayed in.

What began as:

Dear Booking.com, I believe you owe me €642.

eventually became:

EXHIBIT A through EXHIBIT J.

Thirty-seven pages.

There are divorces with less documentation.

Some men retire and take up golf.

Some build model trains.

I apparently build evidentiary records.

And remember, I was still asking for only €642.

Not damages.

Not the replacement accommodation.

Not ferry costs.

Not compensation for emotional distress.

Not even compensation for the moment Karen contemplated becoming one with the Ionian Sea.

Just the €642 we had paid for accommodation we never used.

Simple.

Or so I thought.

Then I discovered the European Consumer Centre.

ECC Greece.

Booking.com B.V. is in the Netherlands.

I am in Greece.

Amsterdam, meet Kalamata.

ECC required a complaint form.

Completed.

Supporting evidence.

I had some.

A Power of Attorney allowing them to handle the dispute.

Signed.

Digitally certified by the Greek government.

At this point a vacation booking had acquired international representation.

Karen looked at me.

I could sense the question.

How much time have you spent on this?

Wrong question.

I am retired.

Time has no market value anymore.

But I still was not finished.

I found Booking.com B.V.’s corporate address in Amsterdam.

So I prepared the letter.

Formal.

Polite.

Registered international mail.

There is something deeply satisfying about registered international mail.

Email says:

“Please read this.”

Registered mail says:

“Oh, you are going to know I sent this.”

And somewhere in Amsterdam, a corporation is now discovering that the Greek retiree did not, in fact, go away.

This is where corporations sometimes miscalculate.

Their systems are built around exhaustion.

Click here.

Choose a category that does not describe your problem.

Chat with a bot.

Receive a case number.

Explain everything again.

Wait.

Write again.

Be transferred.

Explain everything again.

Eventually, surely, the customer will decide:

Life is short.

Forget it.

And that probably works beautifully on people with jobs.

People commuting.

People with meetings.

People who have somewhere to be tomorrow morning.

But then one day the complaint lands in the hands of a mature (sic) “repurposed”Greek living in Kalamata.

He wakes up.

Makes Greek coffee.

Looks at the clock.

Nothing scheduled until lunch.

And thinks:

I wonder what Article 7 says.

This is when the corporation should become concerned.

I do not know how this will end.

Booking.com may refund the money.

ECC may help reach a settlement.

Booking.com may continue saying no.

There may be another letter.

There may be an Exhibit K.

Nobody knows.

But I do have one recommendation for corporate risk-management departments worldwide.

When a customer refuses to disappear, do not first ask:

“How much does he want?”

Ask:

“How old is he?”

“Is he retired?”

“Is he Greek?”

If the answers are:

65+ (officially inside Greek senior-citizen territory).

Yes.

Yes.

Pay immediately.

Because somewhere in Kalamata there may already be a folder on a MacBook called:

MASTER_Evidence_Bundle_A-J_Final.pdf

And the word Final does not necessarily mean what you think it means.

P.S. Currently accepting no new corporate disputes until further notice.