A D.C. woman regularly takes a bus to visit family in Philadelphia, but one recent Sunday evening, the bus for her return trip didn’t arrive, forcing her to buy a train ticket home.
Megabus makes Imani Prince’s trips to Philadelphia more affordable, but one night she waited at 30th Street Station an hour and 36 minutes for the 9:30 p.m. bus and it still didn’t show.
“Any other time I ride Megabus, the bus is on time,” she said.
Even Megabus employees at the bus station didn't know the status of the bus, Prince said.
“They said they had no way of contacting the bus driver or the company because the company closes at 9 p.m. on Sundays,” she said.
The Megabus app wasn't offering updates, either.
“We were all just stranded for a lack of better terms and it’s 11 o’clock at night in Philadelphia,” she said.
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Tired of waiting and pretty nervous being alone at a bus station so late, Prince bought train ticket back to D.C.
“The very next day I called Megabus and said, this is the situation, what are my next steps?” Prince said.
She wound up in an email chain with the company.
First, she received a promising email, saying the total delay time warranted compensation.
But in a second email, the company stated it would not be able to honor her request for a refund.
So Prince contacted NBC4 Responds, which asked Megabus about the scheduled trip and refund.
Megabus confirmed the bus was delayed longer than two hours and said all of the passengers on that bus have received compensation.
“Megabus.com can confirm that the 9:30 p.m. bus on Oct. 16 from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., was delayed,” Director of Corporate Affairs Sean Hughes said in a statement. “The passengers on the bus that were delayed have received compensation. If a passenger has an issue, some helpful tips are to get the MegabusUSA app for your phone or check our website from any mobile device to track your bus real time, and you can tweet @Megabushelp, which is monitored 24/7. Megabus.com apologizes for the inconvenience to our passengers. Safety is our top priority.”
Megabus refunded Prince $25 for the bus ticket and $55 for the train ticket.
”If I would never have called you, they would have been giving me the run around still to this day,” Prince said.
