You can tell the good companies from the bad companies by when you paid for something and something goes wrong do they try and make you whole again. My wife and I recently were in Paris and Paid for the Paris Pass by go City, thinking we would do the Hop on Hop off bus the first day and then our museum visits the next day. We paid for 2 Adult 3 day passes. We got on the Hop on Hop off bus fine, however when we tried to use the pass at the Louvre, only one museum pass would download and spent 3 hours on the phone at the Louvre speaking with their customer service department who ended the call by saying only one pass is active and the other pass would be active the next day. Now here is the "We are getting ready to screw you moment" - we asked the service attendant since we are on vacation together and the passes are not going to work together, then please offer a refund excluding the cost of the Hop on Hop off bus. The attendant said, we cannot provide you a refund or start the process of the refund until the passes expires.
We are at the Louvre talking to customer service and Go City's first solution is for my wife to go on the tour by herself and wait for the second pass to activate the next day and plan other events then - all the while knowing the first pass will expire one day before the second pass. The next day we wake up at the hotel and the second pass still has not been activated, so we are stuck with the dilemma do you try and use the pass (meaning planning your trip around getting to and from the event you may or may not get into without paying additional money) or do you not use the pass and wait til they expire and file for a refund? We chose not use the pass and waited til it expired to file for a refund. You guessed it - Paris Pass by Go City now says since you activated your pass we cannot provide a refund and you paid $420 plus to ride the Hop on Hop off Bus.
We knew when we were talking to customer service that this was going to be a bad outcome because when you are on the phone for approx 3hrs. and instead of solving your problem they try to push the problem to another day you are in trouble. Again, these places are great at taking your money, however when problems arise, the hands go up and you are all alone. In the end, we paid for the most expensive hop on hop off bus ride in history.
DO NOT GIVE THESE HUSTLERS A DIME - THEY ARE WORSE THAN THE PICKPOCKETERS
Posted by
Green Bay
21026 posts
Sorry about the mess, but thanks for sharing. For years the universal recommendation from everyone on this Forum has been to stay far, far away from the Paris Pass.
Posted by
Duluth 🛶
7748 posts
I'm sorry about your problem, but next time I would strongly suggest you come to this forum first to research and ask questions, rather than wading in and then finding a problem. Lately there have been a lot of first-time posters who are coming here with issues that could easily have been eliminated by some research ahead of time.
Posted by
Lynnwood, Washington
8831 posts
First of all, this is not a scam. I would call it more like a series of unfortunate events. I understand you are frustrated, but it is pretty serious to accuse a company of fraud.
Event number 1- Technical issue of some sort . Were you using the Go City App? Once the pass was downloaded on the app and activated for the HoHo bus, you would have had a QR code on the app that would have appeared as soon as you opened the app. Are you saying one of the QR codes did not appear on the second day or that it appeared but was not valid?
Event number 2- customer service failure. This tech problem must have been a bit unusual in that they were unable to resolve it right away. Clearly it was not handled in a manner that was satisfactory. I understand your frustration.
Event number 3- You chose not to use the one pass you did have activated. I understand that you felt that this was the best choice at the time, but it definitely plays into the scope of the loss of both vacation sightseeing enjoyment and money.
I’m sure that this pass failure impacted your vacation severely. I would not have been happy either. However, Go City is not a scam company. They provide a product that usually works. I am so sorry that it didn’t work for you.
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
10577 posts
So is Go City a new company? I see they also have NY and other cities. Or, is this the old Paris Pass company but electronic? Something to be said for good, old paper passes.
Yes, how a company resolves problems is important. Thank you for sharing your experience. I'd be too nervous to rely on my phone for this and your experience reinforces my opinion.
Posted by
Lynnwood, Washington
8831 posts
Go City is the parent company for all of the "city passes", London Pass, etc. I have had extremely positive experiences dealing with them in London and the app has always worked well for me. They have been in business for a long time.
Like all things tech and travel related, everything works fine until it doesn't. I am very sorry for the difficult experience the poster had.