Refund gone missing... ARN number?

twocurtains

Hello experts,

In brief:

Paid for a hotel booking on a NatWest Maestro debit card in August 2010, for a holiday in August 2011.

Cancelled the booking (within the rights, full refund applicable) in July 2011 due to change of circumstances.

Retailer credited the refund to the card but in the intervening year, the card had expired and I have been issued with a NatWest Visa debit card instead.

Money has not arrived in bank account. It is now nearly November and we are still chasing this. The bank have been useless. Their chargeback & disputes department say they can only deal with transactions on Visa cards (even though it was a NatWest Maestro card) and also have never heard of an ARN which the retailer say should be enough to trace the payment.

Tearing my hair out!! Can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks in advance.

YorkshireBoy

twocurtains wrote: »

The bank have been useless.

Can anyone offer any advice?

https://www.natwest.com/secure/global/contact_us/complaints_procedure.htm

meer53

An ARN number is an Acquirer Reference Number which is unique to every transaction. Your credit will be sitting in a suspense account at Natwest, or it may have been charged back at the time of receipt. If it had been charged back then Natwest should have details of this. Some credits are sent back to the originator if they can't be applied to an account but seeing as you haven't changed banks, just cards, i don't see why Natwest would have done this. Gather together all the information, copies of receipts, booking and cancellation confirmations etc and make a formal written complaint to Natwest asking them to locate it for you. I've not dealt with Maestro for so long that i can't remember whether ARN's apply to Maestro or not but they definatelt appear on every Visa transaction. As Maestro was part of the Mastercard system there will be a reference somewhere that they can use to find it for you.
You should still be in time for a chargeback for non receipt of refund too, you're allowed 120 days from the date on the refund receipt.

stclair

twocurtains wrote: »

Hello experts,

In brief:

Paid for a hotel booking on a NatWest Maestro debit card in August 2010, for a holiday in August 2011.

Cancelled the booking (within the rights, full refund applicable) in July 2011 due to change of circumstances.

Retailer credited the refund to the card but in the intervening year, the card had expired and I have been issued with a NatWest Visa debit card instead.

Money has not arrived in bank account. It is now nearly November and we are still chasing this. The bank have been useless. Their chargeback & disputes department say they can only deal with transactions on Visa cards (even though it was a NatWest Maestro card) and also have never heard of an ARN which the retailer say should be enough to trace the payment.

Tearing my hair out!! Can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks in advance.

If the retailer refunded you the money the onus is on the retailer to prove the refund was made?

You will need to ask the retailer to provide evidence of how and when etc the refund was made.

They may also want to contact there merchants to check the refund actually went through.