Super Breaks reimbursed us the full amount for ruined holiday, now they want it back.

SuperBroken

Hi,

I won't go into the details of the holiday at the moment, but Super Breaks and Travelodge agreed to reimburse us the princely sum of £50 for a terrible 3 day break to York.

I was planning on contesting the measly offer, when out the blue the full amount of £580 appeared in my Paypal account.

This being about a month since they paid us the £580, the money has been well spent but a letter arrived today citing an admin error and they want it paid back in full.

At the time I assumed they had had a change of heart so we just took the money. My question is what to do now. They want the full amount back and I don't have it any more - plus I was going to contest the original offer of £50 anyway - so was hoping for a bit more off than £50.

Any help would be much appreciated, especially from a legal standpoint.

Cheers.

Elle7

Did you contact them at all when you received the full refund?

If you contacted them and they confirmed this was right, then as far as I know you'd be able to keep it.

If it was completely unexpected, which it sounds it from the above, you might well have to pay it back. After all, if they offered you £50 and you didn't contest - you say you intended to, so I presume you didn't? - it looks like quite a clear and obvious error to me.

You could offer them a payment plan, as long as it was reasonable, and you could try and use this as a way to get more off - offer them £400, for example, as full and final settlement, but you'd probably have to pay the £400 as a lump sum for that to be acceptable.

Was the problem with the holiday more in line with receiving money off, as you did, or with getting a full refund?

greenface

Ask a legal standpoint sort of person to get a true answer. IMHO it depends on what paper/email there has been between you both and whaqt you are(were) claiming for. Also if its the full amount not more or less i can see you were of the impression it was a refund. Be aware they still have your contact and cc details and i would tell the bank not to give money to tlodge or sbreaks atm. I would not make contact with the companys but keep all details and see what happens.. good luck

SuperBroken

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't send a reply when they sent the refund. No.

Can't afford to pay back at once, so if I do have to, it will probably be full but in instalments.

The email was from Paypal via Super Breaks and the subject in the email from them read: "Refund from Superbreak Mini-Holidays Ltd" and was the exact amount we paid them to begin with. So I treated it as just that. I might of contacted them if it was less obviously a refund.

Originally I just complained about how awful our experience was on the SuperBreaks website, as it was Travel Loge who botched it all up, but I never got any reply from them, so posted on the SB web - as I was at a loss.

Elle7

It's a complicated one.

From their point of view, it is quite easy to accidentally send a full refund rather then a partial one through Paypal, but if this was the case you would have expected them to contact you immediately and ask for the money back.

It doesn't sound like the complaint would warrant a full refund though, and a gesture of goodwill sounds more likely - if I'm reading that right and it was just issues with the website, rather then something which impacted your actual holiday?

Do you now have the £50 voucher and the full refund?

SuperBroken

No, I did think the holiday was bad enough for a refund.

It's just that TR complaints procedure seems to be non existent. They don't seem to answer complaints, so I was opening a dialogue. I decided to post a review on SB website as it seemed like the only way to contact them. 2 months after posting We got the letter offering £50. So that was a dialogue open to now negotiate something more privately. About a week later the full amount was paid and TBH I wasn't relishing the fight, in the same as I'm now having to deal with this.

Yep still got the £50 voucher and (spent) refund, although I doubt the voucher would have been used.

shark_DB

From a PR point of view this could look quite bad for the company, so I would reply that you accepted the refund in good faith and if they continue to hastle you you'll write to watchdog/local papers pointing out how they refunded you for the terrible holiday you had and now want it back.

greenface

shark_DB wrote: »

From a PR point of view this could look quite bad for the company, so I would reply that you accepted the refund in good faith and if they continue to hastle you you'll write to watchdog/local papers pointing out how they refunded you for the terrible holiday you had and now want it back.

as the shark says , you complained they refunded keep the £50 and dont spend it as that would be wrong. Only send it back if they ask for it and dont communicate with them unless (as sharky says) and dont go into any dialogue.