Kentucky family is out $15,000 after foolishly posting Carnival Cruise itinerary on social media

A family from Kentucky is going viral because their Carnival Cruise was cancelled last-minute two days before the sailing. The mother, a reiki healer who goes by @thathippiedoc on TikTok but whose real name is Tiffany Banks, shared multiple videos describing her situation.

I feel bad for Mrs. Banks but she made a foolish mistake. According to The Mirror, she “accidentally shared her booking number online on Facebook. Tiffany and her husband shared their cruise booking reference number while posting a screenshot of an email displaying the countdown to their upcoming vacation on Facebook a few weeks before the trip.

I’ve written about this no-no countless times before, including just three months ago when a friend posted a photo of his Air France boarding pass with his confirmation number and I reminded people again not to do this. Before I alerted my friend to take the photo off social media, I logged into his reservation just to see if it was indeed a safety hazard. And guess what? It was. With the information he shared online, I was able to access his return flight information and I could easily have changed his seat, his flight or canceled it altogether.

That’s what appears to have happened to the Banks family. According to Mrs. Banks’ first of many long TikTok videos, she only found out two days before the cruise. “So yesterday morning I got an e-mail from Carnival saying two of our excursions had been cancelled. I called Carnival, they said your excursions were cancelled because your cabin was canceled. Full blown panic. What are you talking about? Like we’ve been planning this vacation for a year. We booked on the Presidential Excel suite. For those of you who don’t travel or cruise a whole lot, it is the biggest room on the Carnival Celebration Ship.”

To save you and me from having to watch all of her TikToks (embedded below) about her back forth with Carnival, here’s what the Daily Express reports: “The same day they posted, an online Carnival account was created that added the booking number to their profile. Then, 48 hours before the cruise sail date, the person canceled the family’s entire cabin booking, the rep said per a recording shared on TikTok. Banks said Carnival told her the IP address of the person who canceled was traced to British Columbia, however, they were unable to obtain the identity of the fraudster. The company offered her future cruise credit for $10,404 if Banks agreed to post a follow-up, “something to the effect of Carnival has now resolved the issue,” on social media.”

@thathippiedoc♬ original sound – Tiffany Banks

Banks declined and you will learn why in her subsequent videos. The moral of the story is to never ever post your confirmation number online because there are a lot of fraudsters out there. One of my friends had their flight cancelled when he posted an image of his boarding pass on Twitter (now X) that showed he was upgraded to first class. His excitement quickly turned to tears and disbelief.

It’s also why you shouldn’t share your trip details until you’re home so no one robs your house.

If you watch Mrs. Banks’ videos, you will see that after she posted about her unfortunate situation, she learned that she’s not alone in having her cruise canceled. “There’s multiple people that like, they don’t even realize that it’s cancelled, and they go to the port and then they find out the port that it’s canceled. I didn’t realize that that was a thing. I can’t even believe that happened to people.”

A spokesperson from Carnival Cruise Lines told LADbible Group in a statement: “While we are not going to comment on any specific guest complaint or incident, it is never a good idea to post personal information about your travel plans, including a confirmation number for a booking, which could allow a bad actor or identify thief to use that information in inappropriate or even illegal ways.”

Part 2 at the port

@thathippiedoc #carnival #justgotreal #carnivalcelebration #fyp #foryou ♬ original sound – Tiffany Banks

Part 3

@thathippiedoc #carnivalsucks @carnival  #fyp #dreamvacation #dreamcrushers ♬ original sound – Tiffany Banks

Part 4

@thathippiedoc sorry, I’m so awkward ? .. we’re here trying to make some lemonade from the lemon carnival dropped on us. honestly just in the hurt and disappointment down so we can try to make the best of this #operationvacation #fyp  #carnivalsucks #bettertimes ♬ original sound – Tiffany Banks

Part 5

@thathippiedoc Eff you carnival — Go to hell!!! No one from their has contacted us, but this BS response that John is posting that there’s another side to the story and leading to people to believe that he is messaging us privately is total BS we have gotten no private contact from anyone at Carnival !!! I aint even brushed my hair hair and again i got no makeup and look a damn mess – but i know yall dont care at this point  ##fyp##carnivalsucks ♬ original sound – Tiffany Banks

Part 6

@thathippiedoc Sorry take 2 Update — carnival has finally reached out–  I am pretty new to tik tok- so editing went crazy with the first one .. Even with help from my teenager daughter ?  the call was almost 12 mins but if everyone wants to hear the entire thing I can look into finding a way  #truth #truthteller  #c#cruisetokc#carnivalf#fyp#t#tiffanybankscarinval ♬ original sound – Tiffany Banks

I usually don’t take the sides of big corporations, but I think in this case, I am. Mrs. Banks should never have shared her confirmation online and I think Carnival’s final offer of a credit was fair though they should have done it a lot earlier.

I also think there should be a better way to safeguard something like this from happening again. Perhaps to cancel a cruise, you need to speak to a customer representative and give some specific information that wouldn’t be found in the reservation.

This is also a good reminder to buy travel insurance.

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