I agree with marco’s qoute “with any old rubber date stamp you can buy in a supermarket. ” it’s a farce, they make such a seemingly big deal over this cheap supermarket stamp and this 3 second “check”.

Amanda & others: Although i don’t remeber them making such a big deal of the stamp when flying inbound, it seems more of a money maker for ryanair uk. Best advice is to insist on the stamp, always… it’s better to waste their and a little of your time at the desk (both inbound and outbound desks) then to be made to miss your flight and incur 100 pound charge.

Patricia: to add to your comment, the same commentary was made by one of the guys that work for BAA stansted, basically that Ryanair are exactly as people say here, and customer care is zero and money making scamming is king. go figure.

You can complaing and complain till the cows come home, no sympathy will be had from standsted clerical staff, managers etc. They don’t care, they just want another slice of your pie. The manager WES at stansted even commented that there’s so much bad experience comments from other ryanair customers online and he’d be waiting to read ours. They won’t address these issues as long as people are paying and flying with them= poor management, poor service= poor poor poor.

Understandably it is a job for them and any job can get to you, but above and beyond the blatent rudeness from 99% of staff i dealt with at Ryanair standsted, it is clear to see that tactics are definately employed to rip people off;

I nearly was caught out by this newly hashed visa scam; not through my own negligence because i’d fully read the boarding pass & all other literature both before and after dealing with the desk cleark and knew about the stamp requirement. At the desk my papers were checked but handed back unstamped, i checked and on not seeing the stamp- politely asked for it. The desk clerk was rude and childish in her response ‘it’s not necessary, but if you want it ….” she snatched the boarding card and roughly applied the stamp. (I understood the attitude as anger at not securing another £100 for the company which they later probably get a cut off through colleague share schemes or commision based ensentivising- it’s the only way to explain the rudeness that has blanketed ryanair stansted staff ).

Unfortunately I’m sure many other passengers would simply accept the clerk handing their boarding card back without a stamp, and be hassled later by security or and the gate and miss flight= teamwork scam. It’s definately a scam, why wait for someone to get all the way to the boarding gate to tell them they need a silly stamp, also why not just check the damn visa right there at the gate instead of insisting the person goes all the way back to the bagdrop desks= hustlers (especially after seeing that it takes them exactly 3seconds exactly to perform this check.

THere’s so many things noticed about this firm that suggests that many scams are going on, either in an attempt to delay passengers at the airport itself, clasues within their literature, tactics employed by staff, false advertisements leading incurred charges etc:

People, the only way to effect change is to vote with your feet- don’t travel with this company (easy to say, hard to do….. maybe).

When I got to the check-in/visa check desk, the little girl-child behind the desk thumbed through every page of my passport, studying every stamp from every airport I had been to, like she was an immigration officer.

Once this 18 year old thing was satisfied, she stamped my boarding pass – with any old rubber date stamp you can buy in a supermarket.

Surely this was a breach of privacy, having this check-in child scrutinize my entire flying history? Vile, vile staff working for a vile, vile company.

Also, what about the A.P.I. they used to make you do? I am summizing that they’ve done away with it because of online checkin, but it was always supposedly required by the country you were entering.

What an awful build up to a journey. I am already dreading the whole experience-haven’t even started fighting for seats yet….

Many thanks if anyone can offer some advice.

Now, I cannot believe it is possibly legal that an airline will refuse a passenger to board with a perfectly legal visa on their passport just because they didn’t stamp the boarding pass??? After all, the stamp that they use is a standard date stamp that could have been bought at any stationary shop!

There is immigration police, who are certified to check on visas, the ryanair people couldn’t even tell which visa they were looking for!! Moreover, if the people who are at the check-in counters, are commonly the same people who wait for you at the boarding gate, would it be too much trouble for RyanAir to provide them with a stamp as to avoid people having to run back and miss their flights?

It is just soooooo obvious this is a scam. I even suspect their staff gets a commission for turning people down. I cannot believe there can be so many evil and unhelpful people determined to make your life impossible, packed in one single airline.

To Frank: I inititally paid £120 for my ticket, plus another £100 after I fell for this scam (and that’s not even including the £35 extra they wanted to charge for check-in luggage). So yes, I should have flown with BA. I would have paid the same, and got a much better service for it.

RYAN AIR IS NOT A LOW COST AIRLINE. IT’S A SCAM.

PS. And to those of you who will get ripped off by the other scam, the £35 they will try to charge you for that half gram extra on your hand luggage, do like I did: Open your suitcase and put all of your clothes on (don’t worry, you can take them back off 10 meters later and stick it back in your hand luggage). There is no regulation as to have much weight you can carry on yourself, is there?

But i don’t blame ryanair i blame my aunts for taking her on the worst airline in history. there cheap and nasty no class

i think when anyone buys a ryanair tickett there just a mugg

What annoys the most is with the first flight from Germany to the UK, I went to the check in to make sure my bag was underweight, and the woman at the check in desk directed me straight to security. No mention of this stamp, which I didn’t realise was given by the person at security who ckecks the boarding passes. The return UK-Germany flight was what caught me, and I’m still gobsmacked at the rudeness and unhelpfulness of Ryanair bag check staff when I was trying to figure out how and when I could get on another flight

Unlike Ryanair’s other sneaky-but-transparent money making schemes, this seems to be designed purely to trick people into missing their flights, I can only imagine how many people have been completely stranded without the means to buy an expensive replacement flight. Ian – please keep us informed on the outcome of your claim!