Damage to my suitcase; damning customer service

<p>Dear Sir/Madam</p> <p> </p> <p>I flew from Johannesburg, OR Tambo international airport to Durban's King Shaka International airport on 6 July 2017; flight was at 10:20am. When I refer to "you" in this review, I mean Mango Airlines.</p> <p> </p> <p>I checked in my baggage - a large, black, plastic and metal-based, Samsonite suitcase which is a tough bag and is made so as to withstand the "rough treatment" staff like yours give to bags when putting the bags onto the plane/hold.</p> <p> </p> <p>When I arrived at the carousel to collect my bag in Durban, it's central spine and handle had been damaged to the extent that it is almost impossible to use, and certainly impossible to repair.</p> <p> </p> <p>Angered by this, I wrote to your customer services department using the email address: ********** without reply/response. You had 4 days to respond as we are leaving now. We did not hear a peep during this period. Poor!</p> <p> </p> <p>So, as holidays do, the holiday ended today, 10 July 2017, and we were forced to use the above mentioned, broken suitcase, as no one had contacted us to even hear our story. It could not be pulled by its handle; it had to lifted using the body of the suitcase.</p> <p> </p> <p>We then (prompted by the check-in staffer) decided, after checking in our broken bag for our return leg to jhb to speak to customer services. We went to customer services and were told by them that "it's not our problem; we only deal with tickets. You must speak to the rep at the exit from the arrivals section".</p> <p> </p> <p>We went to speak to the agent, who kept (incoherently) repeating reference to your "terms and conditions". As much as you wish to rely on your terms and conditions, which probably contain an exclusion of liability or indemnification clause, which places the risk on the consumer and transfers such risk (of whatever nature) away from you, let me remind you about a recent piece of legislation (the Consumer Protection Act) you may not be aware of, or that you flout, expecting South Africans and other nationals of other countries, flying locally to merely accept such terms and conditions. I wish to subtly inform you that I am an attorney, and I know that any company who has a consumer that meets the monetary threshold set by the Consumer Protection Act, that whatever your terms and conditions may say, you cannot contract out of the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act (thought you might like to know) and that I as the consumer get to choose what remedy I want.</p> <p> </p> <p>To add insult to injury, when I obtained my suitcase off the couresel in JHB, the entire handle and spine had been **********. If we thought the bag was useless in Durban, it certainly is now. </p> <p> </p> <p>(By the way (probably uselessly) the complaint number given to us by your agent in Durban is D15026.)</p> <p> </p> <p>In the circumstances, I demand that you reimburse me for the damage to my bag by paying for a new one or at least one sufficiently similar.</p> <p> </p> <p>Not only did you damage my bag, but your Consumer assistance procedures and staff are so deficient that a simple issue like this still remains unresolved after all the attempts made by us to resolve the issue.</p> <p> </p> <p>I hope to to hear from you ASAP. If you do not deal with this issue adequately, I will be taking this further using one of the enforcement fora available in terms of the CPA and it's regulations and proclamations by the Minister in relation thereto.</p> <p> </p> <p>Yours faithfully (but very disappointedly)</p> <p>Ryan Tucker</p>