Ryanair fined for misleading customers
Ryanair has instructed its lawyers to appeal a ruling by Hungarian competition authorities, which have accused it of misleading customers.
The Gazdasagi Versenyhivatal, or GVH, has fined the airline €157,000 for misleading passengers over its foreign exchange services.
It claims Ryanair has been misleading consumers by falsely suggesting they would be ‘better off’ opting for its own foreign exchange service than using their respective banks.
It also said that between February 2012 and October this year, it had not properly made it clear to customers that they could opt out of Ryanair’s foreign exchange service and use their bank’s one instead.
Customers were only made aware of this in a ‘barely perceptible way’ at the end of the booking process, it said.
Ryanair said in a statement: "We have instructed our lawyers to appeal this ruling and have already made a number of changes to our website as part of our ongoing Always Getting Better’ improvement programme."
Earlier this year, the GVH fined discount Ryanair just over €50,000, claiming it was misleading customers about ticket prices.
It said the airline was failing to properly inform customers that there might be additional charges on top of the basic airfare, such as taxes, airport fees, service charges or baggage handling fees.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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