eCruiseStore.com in Heathrow, FL, has gone bankrupt. The agency said in a telephone recording that it has closed its doors on October 25 “with regret” due to financial problems. Clients with reservations were urged to contact the cruise lines for more information. No name was given in the announcement. The website www.eCruiseStore.com was down.
The agency appears to be a cruise discount agency operating on referrals from other agents. At press time, it was unclear if the agency had a host agency affiliation. eCruiseStore.com appears not to be a CLIA member.
Internet websites are reflecting the concerns of clients.
“I was just notified by eCruisestore.com that the agency went bankrupt and closed its doors as of Sunday, October 25," read one post at CruiseCritic.com. "It is unclear what the status of my payments are to RCCL, since I paid the travel agent in full for two upcoming sailings. They advise me to dispute the credit card charges to get my money back. I assume that means they never forwarded my payments to RCCL. I'm sure anyone else who has booked passage with them will want to check with RCCL as well.”
“Headsup, something smells fishy at ecruisestore," reads a post at FlyerTalk.com. "We have used Cruisecompete.com several times without problem until we bought a cruise through ecruisestore.com. It appears that they often double charge credit cards under their name or Galaxy Cruises instead of getting the cruise line to charge.
“There are several threads starting up on fodor, cruisecritic and tripadvisor from other disgruntled customers with similar problems," the post continued. "We had a lot of hassle with cruisestore.com and finally our credit card company sorted it out (months later). We also had to have our cards canceled and reissued. I wonder how many people do not notice the double billing that goes on. cruisecompete should not allow ecruisestore to provide quotes.”