WARNING! Delta Air Lines employees giving out FALSE information at LAX - you could be charged as much as $600 for one piece of baggage! Customer service will IGNORE you! You will NOT get any money back!

My finacée and I arrived at LAX for departure to PVR (Puerto Vallarta) for a two week trip over the holiday season 2008–2009. At the check-in counter at LAX, a DELTA ticket agent informed us that fee structures had doubled as of July 2008, and i would be charged $300 round trip for my surfboard. I was outraged at this fee, and argued with the DELTA agent for about 15 minutes, until finally I relented and paid the exhorbidant fee.

Dismayed at having spent about the same amount of money on oversize baggage fees for my surfboard (6'2' shortboard, under 10 lbs, in protective bag), I asked the DELTA agent again to reassure me that this was the sum total of the fees I would pay for oversize baggage fees. She confirmed and gave explicit instructions that I should keep the receipt for $300 safe so that I could produce it upon my return to the Delta Ticket agent in PVR.

Two weeks later, I handed my receipt over to the DELTA ticket agent in PVR and explained that I had already payed the fee. I was then told that my receipt was in fact only one-way from LAX–PVR and that I would be charged another $300!!! (Actually - $311.25 with tax). My fiancée and I repeated the information we had received from the DELTA ticket agent in LAX to no avail. We asked to speak to the manager on duty, but were told that we would have to wait almost 2hrs, which would put us in danger of missing our flight. We were advised to pay and take up the issue with DELTA customer service after arriving home in Los Angeles.

So, without any reasonable recourse, we followed the DELTA ticket agents advice to solve the matter through customer service. I emailed immediately after getting home with a complete description of the events, and stated clearly that had I been given correct information upon check-in at LAX from the incompetent DELTA ticket agent, I would NEVER had agreed to pay $611.00 for my surfboard, instead I would have sent it home in a taxi, but under no circumstances have agreed to pay $611.25.

After three emails, and two phone calls to DELTA customer service, I have now been completely dismissed and ignored. I was given a form letter apology that I had been given incorrect information, and that my email would be used for training purposes, but beyond that there was nothing DELTA Air Lines would do to correct the situation. I have sent multiple emails since then requesting the official Delta Air Lines business name and agent for service, as well as their legal department phone number, but have been continued to be ignored. The DELTA customer service lines of communication had been cut off and I had been dismissed for good. DELTA would use my emails for trining purposes and keep $600 of my hard earned dollars, only $300 of which I had reluctantly agreed to pay.

It isn't fair that DELTA can hold their passengers hostage at airports, give out incorrect information that leads to cost prohibitive fees, then treat their customers politely like garbage until finally just ignoring them. DELTA has proven to me that they would rather hide behind a screen of corporate policy, than actually investigate my case, which was legitimate and truthful.

I spent an extra $311.25 as a direct result of incompetence on the part of a DELTA Air Lines employee, and now I have no recourse but to file a small claims court case, which I am currently in the process of doing. I am outraged at being treated so poorly, and at being dismissed without any investigation into my case.

WARNING!!! Delta Air Lines ticket agents are giving out FALSE information that can cost you as much as $600.00!!! DO NOT trust DELTA employees to give correct information, and DO NOT expect to have any recourse with DELTA customer service after you pay. DELTA is in my opinion, a consumer unfriendly corporation that only cares about taking your money, and hiding behind a veil of incompetence and corporate policy.