In 2008, a musician named Dave Carroll watched, from his own airplane window, as baggage handlers tossed guitars through the air onto the Chicago tarmac. One of them was his. By the time he landed, his $3,500 Taylor guitar was destroyed.
He didn’t ask United for a new guitar. He asked for $1,200 — the cost to repair it. That’s the whole story, really. A man asking a massive company to cover the actual, provable cost of something they broke.
United said no. Then no again, for nine more months, while Carroll got bounced between departments and put through call after call, like his $1,200 claim wasn’t worth anyone’s time. He couldn’t get twelve hundred dollars out of a company that made billions that year.
