Some Facebook users vow to never use Thomas Cook again after £3.5m Corfu compensation case
Thomas Cook UK’s Facebook page has been hit with a high volume of complaints after it emerged it had received £3.5m from a hotel chain where two young children died – a reported tenth of what the parents were given in compensation.
After six and seven year old Bobby and Christi Shepherd died in a carbon monoxide accident at Louis Corcyra Beach hotel in 2006 as a result of a damaged boiler, the travel chain claimed back £3.5m in legal costs from the hotel after a 2010 Greek criminal trial.
The mass of complaints, first spotted by Business Insider, was sparked after it emerged that the fee was ten times that granted to the parents. Furthermore, the company donated £1.5m to Unicef – a move which came under fire from some critics who believe it should have went to the family of the victims.
Comments amassed under a statement from the company made on the 13 May.
Everyone at Thomas Cook was shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Robert and Christianne Shepherd in 2006....
Posted by Thomas Cook UK on Wednesday, 13 May 2015
The backlash kept on coming.
During the Unicef announcement, Thomas Cook chief executive Peter Fankhauser said: "I believe this is the right thing to do and I apologise to the family for all they have gone through.
"Thomas Cook has not in any way profited from our claim against the hotel owner."
Earlier today (Tuesday 19 May), Andy Barr, head of PR agency 10 Yetis, wrote in The Drum that the incident was “not so much a public relations failure as a 'being a decent human being' failure,” in his analysis of the fiasco.