Alpha Telecom

matros

If Alpha have gone bust and this seems very likely. There is unlikely to be any money available to pay us poor subscribers. We are well down the line as unsecured creditors

Has anybody approached their credit card company to ask whether refunds can be made ?

awayfly

The Alpha Telecom website now says:

'It is with great regret that the company Onyx Innovation UK Ltd trading as Alpha Telecom has ceased to trade and will shortly be put into liquidation.
We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused.
Further information will be supplied in due course.'

tiya1990

I have £388 with them

I have paid membership with Which? Legal Service - when I spoke to them this morning - they asked me to contact Trading Standards and find out who their administrators were . Then to write to the administrators for a refund.
Also if you have paid with a credit card - it makes your credit card company jointly liable - so may be worth approaching them as well .

Any other ideas ?

sarahwil

Just to let you all known that yes alpha telecom has gone bust. I think we all believed them when they said it was just tech issues. I don't have much money in it anyway but I don't know whats going to happen with the money. But I am currently looking for another similar one. Sorry. It was good while it lasted.

matros

depending on which country you call why not buy an international phone card

matros

Has anybody spoken to their credit card company ?

tiya1990

matros wrote: »

Has anybody spoken to their credit card company ?

I have spoken to them ( M&S - Mastercard ) to let them know that Alpha Telecom has gone into administration. They asked me to contact the administrators in the first instance , and if that doesn't work
( presumably they will want to see proof that I have tried ) , then to ask Mastercard for a charge-back.

RubberTyre

I rang them last week and was assured they had not gone bankrupt. I guess it’s a case of ‘Lies Come True’. We are unsure how much we had tied up with them (anywhere between £50-£150) as we have not been able to log onto their website to view our account. Is anyone else experiencing difficulties here?
Annoyingly they have been trying to grab money right up to the last minute. :mad:
I’ll check with my credit card company Monday to see if I have got a leg to stand on.
In the mean time we have been looking at using PrimusTel (but obviously only put in about c.£15 and no more). Let know of any comments about this company.

matros

see this link For those who paid over £ 100.00 under £ 100.00 it looks like hard luck Hope the link works

moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/section75-protect-your-purchases#what[/url]

matros

see this link put www. and then cut and paste in search engine

financial-€ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/31/creditcards-31.htm


credit cards - equal liability under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974

Paying for goods or services by credit card is now a major part of daily life, with many people preferring this method of payment to using cash or cheques. An advantage of using a credit card is that, under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, customers who have a claim against a supplier for breach of contract or misrepresentation will generally have an equal claim against the card issuer.

Claims are often made against the card issuer when the supplier has gone out of business or disappeared. Firms will sometimes tell customers that they must first get a court judgment against the supplier. That is wrong. The customer can choose whether to claim against the supplier, the card issuer, or both.

In a case reported in issue 21 of ombudsman news (case study 21/11), we awarded a customer £250 compensation for the inconvenience a firm caused by repeatedly, and incorrectly, telling him that it was only required to meet his claim if he first obtained a court judgment against the supplier.

For section 75 to apply, certain conditions must be met. Most credit card purchases will be covered, but:

the cash price of the goods or services must be more than £100 and not more than £30,000; and
purchases are not covered if they are made by debit cards or by charge cards (where the monthly bill has to be settled in full).
Also, section 75 only applies if the credit has been provided under a ‘pre-existing arrangement’ that involves both the supplier and the credit provider. So credit cards are covered because suppliers are signed up by one firm (called the ‘acquirer’) to accept cards belonging to the relevant network – such as Mastercard or Visa. The arrangement involves both the supplier and firms that issue cards through that network.

However, credit card cheques are not covered because they can be made payable to anyone – not just to the suppliers appointed to accept the credit card. And the credit card company would not share liability if the card was used to withdraw cash to pay for the purchase.

There can be problems if the card is accepted by a different business from the one that provided the goods and services. We see this situation most frequently in connection with timeshare and holiday club membership, where it is not unusual for the timeshare or holiday club company to use the credit card facilities of another business. The business accepting the payment may simply be acting as agent for the supplier, in which case section 75 will not apply. In order for section 75 to apply, the business that accepts the payment and the supplier have to be "associates", as defined in the Consumer Credit Act.

Where customers use a credit card to buy airline or other travel tickets from a travel agent, they cannot normally claim against the travel agent if the airline delays or cancels the flight. This is because the travel agent contracted to supply the ticket, not the flight. So the customer would not have a claim under section 75 either.

However, things are different if customers use a credit card to buy the travel agent’s own "package" of travel arrangements. In such instances the agent is the supplier of the holiday package. This situation is illustrated in case study 31/6.

Section 75 does not, in itself, provide grounds for a claim against a supplier. Customers must have a valid claim of breach of contract or misrepresentation under other law, such as the Sale of Goods Act or the Misrepresentation Act. If they do, then they have a like claim against the card provider for the full amount of the claim.

The claim is not limited to the amount of the credit card transaction. Customers can claim for all losses caused by the breach of contract or misrepresentation. And this applies even if all they paid by credit card was the deposit.

So, for example, a customer who pays a deposit for goods – using a credit card issued by firm A – and then pays the balance using firm B’s card, has the choice of claiming for the cost of goods and any consequental losses against:

the supplier of the goods;
firm A;
firm B; or
all three.
But of course, the customer cannot recover the same money twice.

However, to uphold a complaint we need to be satisfied that the customer had a claim for breach of contract or misrepresentation. This is straightforward if the customer has paid for goods or services that have not been provided at all. It is not so straightforward if the claim is that the goods were not of a satisfactory quality, or not as described to the customer.

If the dispute boils down to a question of taste, or simply to disappointment with the goods or services bought, then we are unlikely to be satisfied that there has been a breach of contract.

For example, we did not uphold the complaint of Ms X who said that her new haircut, paid for by credit card, did not suit her. Nor the complaint of Mr Z (who paid for a meal by credit card) after an altercation in the restaurant concerned. We took the view that he had received the items shown on the bill, and that his dispute really concerned how the restaurant treated him and his guests, rather than the quality of the meal he had paid for.

Many people now use their credit cards, rather than travellers cheques or cash, to pay for goods and services while on holiday abroad. Whether section 75 applies to transactions abroad is a matter of dispute.

HSBC, Bank of Scotland and Sainsbury’s Bank have agreed with the Office of Fair Trading that they will apply section 75 to transactions abroad. Other card issuers will not. The argument is due to be resolved by the courts, as the Office of Fair Trading, Lloyds TSB Bank and Tesco Personal Finance have applied to the High Court for a declaration on whether section 75 applies to foreign transactions.

In the meantime, most firms voluntarily operate a policy to accept otherwise valid claims up to the amount of the credit transaction. We consider all firms should do this as a matter of good banking practice.