KLM misidentifies me as a criminal, charges me extra because of it and then threatens me with arrest

On August 5th, I attempted to catch a flight from London Heathrow to Amsterdam. A few days prior I had received a booking confirmation from KLM. After turning up 2 hours early, I attempted to check in using the automated check in machines using my passport. This failed. The machines did not recognize my booking.

I then queued up for the regular check in desk and attempted to check in. Once again, I was told that my booking did not exist. They directed me to the KLM customer service desk.

The KLM customer service desk initially told me that no booking existed under my name. I called up the girl at my office who had booked the flight to get the booking reference. Before I finished the call, I was told that my booking was found and it was suspended because the card used to book it was fraudulent.

FRAUDULENT. Not 'suspected' fraudulent. They described it as fraudulent. That might not seem like such a huge difference, but it's the difference between calling me a criminal and not. I'm not a criminal, and the card was a perfectly valid Visa card which was used by my company for hundreds of different transactions with hundreds of companies, none of whom had a problem with it.

This in itself was not enough to bother me. I know that retailers are tasked with detecting credit card fraud and averting it, and carry the losses if they don't catch it. There will be the odd false positive whatever system they used. How they dealt with it and their utter denial that the system could have made a mistake is what bothered me.

I first asked why I had an email from KLM *confirming* my booking if the card used to book it was marked as fraudulent. This was met by the KLM customer service agent with a curt "I'm not the Internet" (sic). I asked if there was any way I could help them verify that the card was not fraudulent. They point blank refused, telling me "the card is fraudulent". Again, calling me a criminal, refusing even to consider the notion that I might not be.

The lady finally suggested a solution which I would have been happy with. She said I could reactivate the booking on my personal credit card. I said fine and gave her the card.

She then told me that the price of the flight had gone up (roughly 3x) from the original booking. My response:

"That is !@#$-ing ridiculous."

The lady took great offense at my statement (which I will not retract, it was !@#$-ing ridiculous). I explained that misidentifying me as a criminal and then charging me an extra 130 pounds for my flight WAS, in fact, ridiculous. At this point, the gentleman next to her aggressively chipped in telling me that this is how it was, the card was fraudulent and there was nothing he could do. They then denied working for KLM (apparently KLM outsource their customer service work).

The lady attempted to conciliate me by telling me that my company would pay for it (how generous).

I thought that the entire conversation was ridiculous enough, and the man rude enough about it that I decided to take his name in order to lodge a formal complaint against the airline. He wrote it down for me: "Mazurkiewicz". I then took a photo of him on my phone to verify his identity along with his name.

I collected my ticket, got my boarding pass and then entered security. I thought that would be the end of it.

When I got through, I waited at a cafe and checked the departure boards periodically for my flight gate (the ticket had no gate printed on it). No gate appeared on the departure board, which led me to believe that the flight was delayed.

I went to the KLM customer service desk inside the departure lounge (staffed by a different, and much more polite lady). She told me that I was the only person who hadn't boarded and I had missed my flight, and my name was announced over the PA. I contested this - I hadn't heard my name announced (and I wasn't listening to music or anything) and the departure board definitely did NOT show a gate. However, since I was the only person who hadn't boarded and I couldn't prove that the departure board didn't show a gate I didn't push it.

The lady then told me to wait (I waited about 20 minutes) while she dealt with some other airline that had screwed up and some people who were stranded at Heathrow. Fair enough, other people had greater problems than mine. I'm not an impatient person.

She then tried to book me on the next flight, after calling up the same customer service representatives who had talked to me earlier (she confirmed this). They told her that my ticket was not amendable, which I think was a lie, and since I apparently paid full price for it it *should* have been amendable.

At this point another customer service man who seemed to have more authority came over to talked to me. He told me that the people from the original customer service desk (I was getting sick of all these people by now - I just wanted to catch my flight) had pre-emptively complained about me. Apparently:

A) I had threatened them. He declined to say with what. I had "threatened" only to lodge a formal complaint about their behavior. It wasn't even really a threat, I just said I'd do it.
B) That people from a different customer service desk had verified that I threatened them (again, he declined to say with what).
C) I had taken a photo of the Polish man (Mazurkiewicz). I confirmed this and stated that it was purely for identification purposes.

He then told me that in no uncertain terms A) I had to delete the photo RIGHT NOW or he would "involve the police" in this matter, B) in the matter of "the fraudulent credit card" (yes, he called it that too), I had threatened his staff (the implication was definitely "with violence").

He explained that because Heathrow is private property (BAA owns it), it was illegal to take photos without the express permission of the owner. I asked him why. He declined to explain why he wanted me to delete the photograph, explaining only that it was illegal. There is no possible reason WHY he would want me to do it, and I can only assume that the reason he did this was purely to intimidate me. Nevertheless, I complied and deleted the photograph after he confirmed the name of the man on the desk.

He then gave me his business card, which I seem to have since lost.

After he had finished his intimidation attempt, he did at least get the lady on the desk to book me the next available flight and only charge me the amendable fare (30 quid). That was cause for some relief, although I'm fairly sure he was only undoing a lie by the same people I had a problem with before.

The lady then took me aside and calmed me (I had just been threatened with arrest, I was shaking a little) and listened understandingly to my story. She was nice, and seemed to empathize with my story.

I did catch the next flight (the departure board showed the gate this time) and got to Amsterdam eventually.

Apparently, several of my coworkers who also flew on bookings made with the same card had to pay for their flights with their personal credit cards too. The card has also been used with BA (and tons of other retailers) and nobody else flagged it as fraudulent.

Barring an apology, a full refund and a promise to amend their customer service policies to prevent this kind of stupid behaviour I am never flying KLM again. I've also advised my company to avoid using this carrier (I've used EasyJet and BA before instead and they've never caused me any problems on my way to Amsterdam).