You Got Served...For Posting a Picture

You remember what I was saying the other day about customer service and trying not to jump the gun when it comes to customers giving bad reviews? If you don’t, click here.

Well, it seems like an Indonesian airline could use some of this advice. What is this gist, you ask? So apparently, an Indonesian travel blogger Ruis Vernandes, on his flight from Sydney to Bali on the Garuda Indonesia, had been handed a handwritten menu. It was written on a piece of paper that had obviously been removed from a spiral-bound notebook. I mean, I understand the shabby chic or rustic look but even that might have been a little too rustic. 

Source: YouTube Rius Vernandes

Vernandes seemed to think so as well when he shared a picture of the menu on his Instagram page. The picture *unsurprisingly* went viral and of course, drew amused comments from his followers. The airline’s management, however, was not amused and quickly took to Beyoncé's internet to announce that the menu was not supposed to be viewed by passengers but only by cabin crew members. They also published an internal memo stating that it was banning videos and pictures from cabins in their planes. Ah, small play? 

After a little online push back, the management backtracked that pictures were only banned if they were ‘disturbing the peace’ of other passengers. Lol, yeah right. As if that wasn't bad enough, on the Wednesday after this incident, (it had happened over the weekend), Vernandes and his fiance received a brown envelope in the mail that meant they had been served. Um, what? 

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Guys, gw sama elwi dapat panggilan dari polisi mengenai masalah ini. Kami di laporkan atas dugaan melakukan tindak pidana pencemaran nama baik. Gw yakin kalian tau kalau gw TIDAK ADA maksud sama sekali untuk mencemarkan nama baik siapapun. ⁣ ⁣ Gw sangat minta support kalian soal ini. Semua nya. Siapa pun. Kalian semua punya suara. Terutama teman2 influencer. Gw harap kalian bisa bantu share dan support gw dalam masalah ini karena gw gak mau di masa depan ketika kita review sesuatu dengan apa adanya, ketika kita memberikan kritisi yang membangun, kita bisa di pidana. ⁣ ⁣ Gw akan menghormati segala peraturan hukum yang ada dan akan menjalani semua ini. Gw sama sekali tidak merasa mencemarkan nama baik. Gw tidak takut. Tapi tidak ada kah cara yang lebih kekeluargaan dalam menyelesaikan masalah ini?

A post shared by Rius Vernandes (@rius.vernandes) on Jul 15, 2019 at 10:30pm PDT

The brown envelope contained a police summons which meant that the airline had filed a formal complaint to the police and Vernandes could be looking at up to four years in jail if convicted. Mad ting. Imagine posting a video on Instagram (as part of your job oh! Okay, maybe hobby) and getting sued for it. He posted a picture of the envelope asking for support from his fellow vloggers and influencers, stating that he didn’t want to see a future where one could be criminalised for giving constructive criticism. 

Last I read, Garuda Indonesia had dropped all charges and offered Vernandes and his fiancé two free tickets. All I have to say is, Tearoom management is learning work when it comes to completely botching customer service.