I wonder how Amtrak sells anything on their web site

[PRR 60]

The roomette scam NEEDS to be fixed.

I'm not defending Amtrak at all, but I would hardly call it a "SCAM"! Do you also call the airlines pricing system a scam when you call to get a fare and are told $xxx, and a friend calls the same airline while you call and are told a Different fare? :huh: Or if you call United Airlines to get a fare and are told one fare, but the flight is numbered as an Air Canada flight so you call AC and are told a different fare? :huh: Or if you go to a Toyota dealer (a few years ago) and price an Solara (I think it was) and get a price, and then go to an Acura dealer and get a higher price (I forget the Acura model)? They are the same exact car - in fact they are owned by the same company!

just because others engage in the practice doesn't mean it's not a scam

Scam means intentionally pricing to steal peoples money.. Do you really think Amtrak is intentionally making erroneous prices for a room?

After four months of overcharging unknowing customers with no end in sight, I don't think the term "scam" is unwarranted. Amtrak has known of this problem since day one. If the issue was the other way, if the fares quoted were too low, do you think Amtrak would have taken four months to correct it? It would have been more like four hours.

This issue has jumped the shark from honest mistake to scam.

 

[leemell]

That does make it a criminal practice and also makes Amtrak Civilly liable. For the small amount of revenue (relatively speaking) that can be garnered here and the public visibility, I really don't think so, Egregious management probably, but scam, no.

 

[trainman74]

Of course booking on the phone solves the problem for most folks, but deaf people who are unable to book on the telephone typically have to use the Web site (or get in the car and drive miles to a live agent at a station). Hmm, this sounds like an ADA lawsuit in the making, doesn't it?

I would guess that an ADA lawsuit over "not being able to use the phone" would be a nonstarter because of the existence of the 711 relay service.

 

[Train person]

That does make it a criminal practice and also makes Amtrak Civilly liable. For the small amount of revenue (relatively speaking) that can be garnered here and the public visibility, I really don't think so, Egregious management probably, but scam, no.

Fine line between the two really.If Amtrak know about the issue (which seems to be the case) yet do not inform or warn passengers about the issue, take the extra revenue, and (presumably) do not refund the overcharge then the line is even thinner.

 

[gmushial]

This was in a previous thread. I got my ears pinned back for calling it a scam or price increase in that thread, and several of our members posted that Amtrak was well aware of this "code problem". (Which was called a glitch in the previous thread) Yet, it still exists......

So, IMHO, if Amtrak is aware of it and refuses to fix it (1), it is intentional, and therefore is a price increase on those who book via the website. If they were to put a notice on the site telling folks to call for correct pricing (2), then it would seem more like an unintentional "glitch" that they were trying to fix while not charging web pax more than phone pax.

Just my dos centavos.

(1) any evidence that they "refuse" to fix it - which is quiet different from a) it's on the to-do list, just not yet reached or b) haven't figured out how to fix it yet

(2) given that there are those in congress that are looking for any excuse to defund Amtrak - might be a case of "saving face" and just working in the background until it's "magically" fixed??... kind of like the groundhog that's learned that everytime it sticks its head it get shot at, so therefore doesn't stick its head up.

 

[tonys96]

This was in a previous thread. I got my ears pinned back for calling it a scam or price increase in that thread, and several of our members posted that Amtrak was well aware of this "code problem". (Which was called a glitch in the previous thread) Yet, it still exists......

So, IMHO, if Amtrak is aware of it and refuses to fix it (1), it is intentional, and therefore is a price increase on those who book via the website. If they were to put a notice on the site telling folks to call for correct pricing (2), then it would seem more like an unintentional "glitch" that they were trying to fix while not charging web pax more than phone pax.

Just my dos centavos.

(1) any evidence that they "refuse" to fix it - which is quiet different from a) it's on the to-do list, just not yet reached or b) haven't figured out how to fix it yet

(2) given that there are those in congress that are looking for any excuse to defund Amtrak - might be a case of "saving face" and just working in the background until it's "magically" fixed??... kind of like the groundhog that's learned that everytime it sticks its head it get shot at, so therefore doesn't stick its head up.

The evidence that Amtrak refuses to fix it is that they:

1. Are aware of it,

2. Have not fixed it,

3. Accept the extra fares,

4. Keep the extra fares, and

5. Have the capability to IMMEDIATELY put a notice to call for correct fare and yet have not done so.

 

[gmushial]

This was in a previous thread. I got my ears pinned back for calling it a scam or price increase in that thread, and several of our members posted that Amtrak was well aware of this "code problem". (Which was called a glitch in the previous thread) Yet, it still exists......

So, IMHO, if Amtrak is aware of it and refuses to fix it (1), it is intentional, and therefore is a price increase on those who book via the website. If they were to put a notice on the site telling folks to call for correct pricing (2), then it would seem more like an unintentional "glitch" that they were trying to fix while not charging web pax more than phone pax.

Just my dos centavos.

(1) any evidence that they "refuse" to fix it - which is quiet different from a) it's on the to-do list, just not yet reached or b) haven't figured out how to fix it yet

(2) given that there are those in congress that are looking for any excuse to defund Amtrak - might be a case of "saving face" and just working in the background until it's "magically" fixed??... kind of like the groundhog that's learned that everytime it sticks its head it get shot at, so therefore doesn't stick its head up.

The evidence that Amtrak refuses to fix it is that they:

1. Are aware of it,

2. Have not fixed it,

3. Accept the extra fares,

4. Keep the extra fares, and

5. Have the capability to IMMEDIATELY put a notice to call for correct fare and yet have not done so.

"Refuses to fix" requires them to have the ability to fix the problem, but choose not to do so: what evidence do you have that they have the ability to fix the problem, now or for some time already? Putting up a warning that there is a problem does not fix the problem, merely points out its existence. Saying that they refuse to fix the problem is probably the most damning interpretation of the situation for which I don't see and I don't see you've presented the evidence thereof [while there are probably a half dozen other more likely and less damning interpretations.] Why the need to wax hyperbolic - generally this is a congenial forum where such is out of place?

 

[Nathanael]

The roomette scam NEEDS to be fixed.

I'm not defending Amtrak at all, but I would hardly call it a "SCAM"!

No, it's not really a scam, since it's not intentional, but it comes across as one -- because it's a violation of Amtrak's own stated pricing policy (which says that a roomette costs the same amount whether it has one or two people in it).

In fact it's simply a grevious error, and it really should have been fixed months ago. It only happens if you go through the website, not if you phone. Amtrak has explicitly stated that Amtrak is trying to encourage people to use the website rather than phone, and as long as stuff like this is happening, Amtrak is actively encouraging people not to use the website.

Perhaps this is actually why it hasn't been fixed -- it seems so obviously disastrous that I think most people assumed someone else had escalated the problem!

 

[Nathanael]

"Refuses to fix" requires them to have the ability to fix the problem, but choose not to do so: what evidence do you have that they have the ability to fix the problem, now or for some time already?

I'm a computer programmer. They have the ability to fix the problem. Period. It could be fixed within a week. I guarantee it. *I* could fix it within a week if I were hired as a consultant, and I've never seen their code. (My rate is $100/hr plus travel expenses, of course. )
I suspect that the problem has never been reported to the correct department.

 

[gmushial]

"Refuses to fix" requires them to have the ability to fix the problem, but choose not to do so: what evidence do you have that they have the ability to fix the problem, now or for some time already?

I'm a computer programmer. They have the ability to fix the problem. Period. It could be fixed within a week. I guarantee it. *I* could fix it within a week if I were hired as a consultant, and I've never seen their code. (My rate is $100/hr plus travel expenses, of course. )
I suspect that the problem has never been reported to the correct department.

Rather bold claims, on little or no information.... plonk...

[oh, btw: wrote my first for hire piece of code in Oct'69, have written 2m+ lines since - compilers, spaceflight packages, ballistics, server-side monsters etc - so, please... ]

 

[Guest]

Rather bold claims, on little or no information.... plonk...

[oh, btw: wrote my first for hire piece of code in Oct'69, have written 2m+ lines since - compilers, spaceflight packages, ballistics, server-side monsters etc - so, please... ]

If you're actually competent, you know damn well that this can be fixed within a week. If the right people even know about it. Which they probably don't.

 

[Nathanael]

Of course, it's true that most computer programmers are not competent, as one finds out when doing debugging. :eyeroll:

But this is a very simple piece of business logic. Worst case, it means a substantial module rewrite to allow for a case which hadn't been considered. Week's work maximum.

 

[Nathanael]

Aaagh. Though suddently I have a horrible vision of the website design being subcontracted to a contractor who has already closed up shop and left town, leaving Amtrak with no source code. If that's the case.... then the problem may take longer.

(Never subcontract like that, kids!)

 

[Anderson]

The roomette scam NEEDS to be fixed.

I'm not defending Amtrak at all, but I would hardly call it a "SCAM"! Do you also call the airlines pricing system a scam when you call to get a fare and are told $xxx, and a friend calls the same airline while you call and are told a Different fare? :huh: Or if you call United Airlines to get a fare and are told one fare, but the flight is numbered as an Air Canada flight so you call AC and are told a different fare? :huh: Or if you go to a Toyota dealer (a few years ago) and price an Solara (I think it was) and get a price, and then go to an Acura dealer and get a higher price (I forget the Acura model)? They are the same exact car - in fact they are owned by the same company!

just because others engage in the practice doesn't mean it's not a scam

Scam means intentionally pricing to steal peoples money.. Do you really think Amtrak is intentionally making erroneous prices for a room?

After four months of overcharging unknowing customers with no end in sight, I don't think the term "scam" is unwarranted. Amtrak has known of this problem since day one. If the issue was the other way, if the fares quoted were too low, do you think Amtrak would have taken four months to correct it? It would have been more like four hours.

This issue has jumped the shark from honest mistake to scam.

I increasingly agree. When it first happened, it seemed like it was just screwed-up code. At this point, it feels like either:

(1) It was an error but so few people noticed that they rolled with it;

(2) It was an error but there's some bureaucratic ineptitude; or

(3) It was an "intentional mistake"/trial balloon to get around the legal fare restrictions. Of course, that leads to an interesting legal question...

Amtrak is limited to a 2:1 limit between the highest and lowest "normal" fares (the Regionals feature the "25% sale" fare as a workaround to this, and other lowered prices fall in this vein as well). In the case of sleepers, this usually translates into a roomette's 2:1 being based on a single passenger fare, and a bedroom's being based on two passenger fares (in both cases, tied to low bucket). Given the funny business here, I'm wondering if Amtrak might not have .wandered into violation of the 2:1 limit

 

[blueman271]

This was in a previous thread. I got my ears pinned back for calling it a scam or price increase in that thread, and several of our members posted that Amtrak was well aware of this "code problem". (Which was called a glitch in the previous thread) Yet, it still exists......

So, IMHO, if Amtrak is aware of it and refuses to fix it (1), it is intentional, and therefore is a price increase on those who book via the website. If they were to put a notice on the site telling folks to call for correct pricing (2), then it would seem more like an unintentional "glitch" that they were trying to fix while not charging web pax more than phone pax.

Just my dos centavos.

(1) any evidence that they "refuse" to fix it - which is quiet different from a) it's on the to-do list, just not yet reached or b) haven't figured out how to fix it yet

(2) given that there are those in congress that are looking for any excuse to defund Amtrak - might be a case of "saving face" and just working in the background until it's "magically" fixed??... kind of like the groundhog that's learned that everytime it sticks its head it get shot at, so therefore doesn't stick its head up.

The evidence that Amtrak refuses to fix it is that they:1. Are aware of it,

2. Have not fixed it,

3. Accept the extra fares,

4. Keep the extra fares, and

5. Have the capability to IMMEDIATELY put a notice to call for correct fare and yet have not done so.

"Refuses to fix" requires them to have the ability to fix the problem, but choose not to do so: what evidence do you have that they have the ability to fix the problem, now or for some time already? Putting up a warning that there is a problem does not fix the problem, merely points out its existence. Saying that they refuse to fix the problem is probably the most damning interpretation of the situation for which I don't see and I don't see you've presented the evidence thereof [while there are probably a half dozen other more likely and less damning interpretations.] Why the need to wax hyperbolic - generally this is a congenial forum where such is out of place?

It seems to me that in 2014 when damn near everything is computerized that Amtrak has the ability to fix the problem, whatever the problem may be. If it were 1994 and Amtrak were the first big transportation entity to launch a website I would understand this. But it isn't 1994, it is 2014 and people have programmed computers to do all kinds of amazing and wonderful things. Surely Amtrak could find someone to rewrite some code so they don't cheat, or give the perception of cheating, their paying customers.

Full disclosure, I'm a wrench-wielding knuckle dragger that doesn't know much about computers so I reserve the right to be totally wrong.

 

[Ryan]

Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

And seriously, this is Amtrak we're talking about here. As much as I love 'em, they've got incompetence in spades.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Does anyone have proof that they have not refunded the $$ if someone did reserve on line? JUst curious.

 

[gmushial]

Does anyone have proof that they have not refunded the $$ if someone did reserve on line? JUst curious.

Proof of a negative is tough... but I had been wondering similar thoughts.

 

[gmushial]

Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

And seriously, this is Amtrak we're talking about here. As much as I love 'em, they've got incompetence in spades.

W/re Hanlon: first ran across it in the 70's and has been a useful tool since ;-)

But I really have to wonder if Amtrak possesses incompetence in spades... I've seen multiple other organizations which exhibit the same symptoms [especially over the last couple years where profits were negative and cash reserves had been bled to zero], when the underlying cause has been lack of money which precludes getting done what needs to get done; and likewise makes it hard to retain the best people.... I still believe that Amtrak's largest problem is the micromanagement from congress and those in that "august body" that love to throw logs in its path and then point out their failings... I would love to see Amtrak finally get enough ridership that it can tell congress to go pound sand, and see what they could really do as a unencumbered corporation.

 

[gmushial]

Aaagh. Though suddently I have a horrible vision of the website design being subcontracted to a contractor who has already closed up shop and left town, leaving Amtrak with no source code. If that's the case.... then the problem may take longer.

(Never subcontract like that, kids!)

I've seen that way too many times... especially with non-computer competent organizations, where they're left with a website but not source code, and the cost to fix a minor problem is the cost to rewrite the site. ... remember: UP's TCS (which runs their entire network) is 11m lines of IBM mainframe assembler code, ie, not all back ends are PHP... and the fact that Amtrak is a legacy organization: I think I would like to lift the lid and take a look inside before suggesting a time-to-fix.

 

[Ryan]

Does anyone have proof that they have not refunded the $$ if someone did reserve on line? JUst curious.

Proof of a negative is tough... but I had been wondering similar thoughts.

This one would be quite easy. All we need is one person who booked online, got overcharged and was told "No refund for you!" when they called in.

 

[Anderson]

Does anyone have proof that they have not refunded the $$ if someone did reserve on line? JUst curious.

Proof of a negative is tough... but I had been wondering similar thoughts.

This one would be quite easy. All we need is one person who booked online, got overcharged and was told "No refund for you!" when they called in.

I would say several people told no and virtually nobody told yes. You never know when an agent is going to break policy somehow.

 

[Ryan]

Good point. You can draw an infinite number of lines from a single data point.

 

[Guest]

Aaagh. Though suddently I have a horrible vision of the website design being subcontracted to a contractor who has already closed up shop and left town, leaving Amtrak with no source code. If that's the case.... then the problem may take longer.

(Never subcontract like that, kids!)

I've seen that way too many times... especially with non-computer competent organizations, where they're left with a website but not source code, and the cost to fix a minor problem is the cost to rewrite the site. ... remember: UP's TCS (which runs their entire network) is 11m lines of IBM mainframe assembler code, ie, not all back ends are PHP... and the fact that Amtrak is a legacy organization: I think I would like to lift the lid and take a look inside before suggesting a time-to-fix.

I mean, I'm competent enough I could still fix this particular bug in a week if it's in a program written in assembly language, if the assembly language code was written with proper subroutine structure. (Non-structured code is another matter and should usually be thrown out.) I could fix it if it's a problem in a PROLOG-style declarative language, I could fix it if it's in a LISP-style functional language, etc. But I understand that most programmers are not so competent.

The thing which makes me so convinced that this should be quick once the right people are alerted, is that the back-end reservations system is still working right, and the front-end used to be working right until the most recent replacement. The entire front end is only a couple of years old. It would take a pretty big screwup to have generated something without source code, or made of spaghetti code, this *recently*.

The odds are that the right people have not been alerted to the problem. The worrisome case is that the right people are *gone*, that Amtrak has no in-house programmers at all, that its subcontractor isn't required to fix anything, that Amtrak doesn't even have an debugger they can call in. These would not be programming problems, but rather management problems.

The case I think most likely is that the right people simply haven't had the bug reported to them. Lack of good testsuites and lack of working bug report mechanisms are really, really common, so that seems like the most likely possibility. You can't fix something you don't know about, even if someone else in your company knows about it.

 

[transit54]

Am I understanding this issue correctly in that if only one roomette is available in the current fare bucket, and one wants to purchase more than one roomette, the price for the higher bucket is charged for both? Or is something more complex going on here?

I ask because when I was in the airline industry, this was how our reservation system worked. If one was purchasing seats and enough weren't available in the lowest fare class, all seats would be sold at the next highest fare class. The only way around this was making multiple reservations.

Is that an acceptable workaround for this issue, also? Simply purchasing two roomettes separately? Or have I just totally misunderstood the nature of the problem?