I first wrote this post back in 2016 (7 years ago!) but I am STILL getting comments on a post I wrote back then, with people writing in with their bad train trips, expecting that doing so will somehow reach Amtrak customer support. Just the other day, I got a post from someone who also shared her phone number and address (I guess hoping that Amtrak would call or write to her? Frankly, it long ago reached the point where it has gotten just completely ridiculous.

I have a post called Amtrak complaints? How to get compensation for Amtrak delays, which I wrote after our Amtrak California Zephyr train was 13 hours late last summer.  I called in to get about $1200 in vouchers, which we used to take the Amtrak Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle earlier this year.

(SEE ALSO: 4 reasons my Amtrak trip was a blast…)

(SEE ALSO: …but I’ll probably never take another Amtrak trip)

Confused Commenters Thinking I Am Amtrak

My post about Amtrak complaints / delays gets a fair amount of Google traffic from people who have poor experiences on Amtrak.  And instead of reading the post and following instructions on how to submit a compensation request to Amtrak, they instead leave comments on the post (I guess hoping that will solve their problems?)

Here is a sampling of the  nearly 70 comments on that post

I was traveling to Slidell on July 2nd from Birmingham, the train was delayed almost 2 hrs leaving, train usually arrive in Slidell at 6:20,we arrived after 11 pm,the family had plans so I couldn’t participate. My conf.number XXXXX

and

the amtrak employees that”man” that cafe car are less than adeqate.
they are slow number one and they close the cafe car WAY before or WAY AFTER the appropriate station stops. I pay a lot of money—ten trips at a time–and have identified those employees who are are good and those who are are not.
You should be more discriminating….a lot of us pay a lot of money and expect a lot more service… youre cafe people are LAZY.

and

I love AMTRAK and/or METROLINK! But I have a serious complaint which needs to be addressed! And that is this: The restrooms at the Chatsworth Station are closed, and I don’t know why! I would pay 25ç just to be able to use the restroom! This is a HEALTH issue! I would like to see a change! PLEASE!

and

hi, in january 24 I think that is the exact date I was supposed to travel from san francisco to san diego with amtrak. The driver called the pólice because a problema ocurred with the passenger and the seats so she didn´t let us travel with her and she got us out opf the bus, it was dark like 11 pm or something like that. My mother and I were forced to sleep in an hotel and we spend money we didn´t have in a hotel and a cab, only because your driver decided to step us off the bus. I would´t want to take legal advice in this situation but I will be forced to do it if you as the a Company do not respond properly to this situation. I have the contact of the other people that were in the bus that day and you can ask them the kind uf situation that my mother and I lived in an Amtrak truck that night and the danger we were into in San Francisco´s Street that night in middle of anywhere.

and

I want an email address where I can send the pictures I took of the bathroom conditions on car 25020. They were never cleaned the entire 20 hour trip.

and

When we arrived in Topeka Tuesday morning November 15, 2022 our2 suitcases were not there. The ticket agent didn’t know there was luggage coming off the train. Ticket agent Frank Could said we would need to pick up luggage in Kansas City. On Wednesday 1:30 am ticket agent called and sais.our luggage was back at Topeka and we needed to pick it up. We told him we felt Amtrak should send it to.us so.he gave us the 800 number to report delayed bag.
We called the 800 number and talked to Costumer relations and was given a Case number. Customers relations said to talk to ticket agent in Topeka to arrange shipping. We called ticket agent, and that is when he said no instructions were given to him to send our luggage to us. He did say that the luggage would go on to Chicago and be destroyed. I talked to Marion #4067 from Customer Relations on November 17th @ 3:40 pm, and she said to send our complaints to you. We did go pick up our luggage on Friday, November 18, 2022. We feel that we need to be reimbursed for 300 mi!es round trip from our home to Topeka. We also.had to buy a meal away from home. We do have receipt for gas. Thank you for taking care of this.

There are longer rants as well that I didn’t include in the hopes of saving some space

PSA – I am a random blogger and am NOT Amtrak Customer Support

Again, in case it was not clear…. I am NOT Amtrak! 🙂  If you ever have a problem with your Amtrak train, I suggest actually contacting Amtrak – in my case, it was fairly straightforward, and the vouchers were enough to pay for half of our trip to Seattle. Whether they are still that generous nowadays I do not know, but I am certain that they will be more responsive than posting comments on a random blog post.

Anyways… just thought I’d share 🙂

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