skyscanner and fly.co.uk scam

Voyager2002

hpuse wrote: »

I would suggest the following:

Make another booking with fly.co.uk, if possible for the same flight and same fare but on a different date. Take 'screen shots' of the entire booking process, till the point before you click pay now.

Compare the charge they are displaying on the final order confirmation page.
If you think the credit card charges are not clear, then write to the company stating that the charges shows are misleading and unclear and demand a full refund.

Hope that helps.

Writing to a company like this is a waste of time. Instead, write to your card issuer explaining why a charge-back is required.

colchesterguide

My credit card company did stop the transaction but they are now chasing for payment which I have no intention of making. These cowboys need shutting down not rewarding for their scams!

Where are the regulators to protect us from these criminals and shut them down?

Felicitations

Same experience recently. I was in a hurry (limited internet access!) and sadly fell upon this site booked a flight and was charged a whooper booking fee that was never made visible . No confidence whatsoever. Keep away! May 2014

petermann wrote: »

Just searched for a flight on skyscanner, and fly.co.uk came out cheapest. I went and booked it, didnt add any extras. The email invoice came through and it showed an extra £27 service charge and £5 credit card charge that werent on the final payment page!!!!!

It also showed that the company is German ( unister gmbH ).
I looked at the terms and conditions, which stated that the refunds will cost £100 per booking, and the service charge will not be refundable!

Is this legal ? What should I do as I'm sure they will not cooperate.

Felicitations

petermann wrote: »

Just searched for a flight on skyscanner, and fly.co.uk came out cheapest. I went and booked it, didnt add any extras. The email invoice came through and it showed an extra £27 service charge and £5 credit card charge that werent on the final payment page!!!!!

It also showed that the company is German ( unister gmbH ).
I looked at the terms and conditions, which stated that the refunds will cost £100 per booking, and the service charge will not be refundable!

Is this legal ? What should I do as I'm sure they will not cooperate.

Exact same experience in May 2014. I was in a hurry (limited internet access!) and sadly fell upon this site booked a flight and was charged a whooper booking fee that was never made visible . No confidence whatsoever. Keep away! Germans giving themselves a bad name again. Diservice to all internet booking sites

Felicitations

budgetflyer wrote: »

I bet you weren't.
I suggest you were charged what was shown on the final page.
This may well be different from what was on skyscanner though.

No! Same experience. I was comparing sites (with the eyes of a hawke) and their total cost showed no booking charge or extras and then wham there it was.

colchesterguide

Seems to me the only time we find out if something is legal or not is when it's tested in court - hence what happened with PPI and why all those who sold it are now having to pay money back. I'm no legal expert but it seems to me that if they charge X for a debit card booking and X+Y for a credit card then Y is a charge for use of a credit card however they choose to describe it. And it this is over 2% it is now illegal.

colchesterguide

You can contact them on their booking hotline number which is 0203 318 33 44 but seems to transfer through to Germany. Added incentive is it ties-up their booking line and they get charged for the cost of the call being routed from the UK to Germany :-) Time to fight back!

Peakers1982

I've had a similar experience to colchesterguide.

In February family illness meant I had to book a flight to Ireland from the UK at extremely short notice. I only booked one way as I didn't know how long I'd be over there for. To cut a long story a tiny bit shorter, I was (sadly) able to return to the UK within less than a week. I couldn't find any flights with Ryanair or any other afforable airline (€350 with Aer Lingus was out of the question) so was quite surprised and pleased to find that fly.co.uk had flights. Of course, I know now that I should have done due diligence and fully researched the company before giving them my money, but with the family situation I was just relieved to find a flight and be on my way home. It was odd that fly.co.uk had Ryanair flights available when Ryanair themselves didn't, but I ignored that small niggle and pressed on. (Does anyone know if Ryanair care that fly.co.uk are apparently breaking their terms and conditions?)

fly.co.uk informed me that a "small service charge" "may" be taken. Fine, I thought, and clicked the box. The final payment page showed a total of £69.99, an amount which included "taxes and fees". Obviously I assumed that this amount included fly.co.uk's service charge too. Imagine my disgust, then, when I received an email from them informing me that they had helped themselves to £30 as their "small" service fee. Not only are they stretching the definition of the word "small" with a fee totalling nearly 43% of the purchase price, but at no point did they inform me of how much that fee would be. Their business model is clearly based on being misleading, then bullying customers into paying up even more with spurious extra charges.

I went straight to my building society on my return and explained the situation. They agreed with me that this behaviour bordered on fraud and reversed the charge. They told me that fly.co.uk had 60 days to dispute the chargeback. The 60 days came and went with no communication. Then last month a German gentleman from fly.co.uk called asking to speak to me. I refused his phonecall. fly.co.uk have since emailed me twice, adding on a £14.99 "chargeback fee" and most recently (last week) a £7.50 "reminder fee". I assume there'll be one or two more email invoices before I receive a written letter threatening me with court action (possibly inferring I'll be summoned to a German court? Users on other forums seem to have received similar).

My hunch is that they won't take me to court as any ruling would effectively be pronouncing on the legality of their very questionable tactics. I'd relish taking them on legally as I feel I have a very strong case - and similarly if they sell my details to a UK-based collections agency I'll be happy to challenge their interpretation in court. The whole affair is now tied up very closely in my mind with the rather sad circumstances surrounding my journey to Ireland and I'll be damned if these bullies get another penny out of me without a fight. My next step is to register a complaint with the European Consumer Unit.

colchesterguide

Can't see how they can pass on a debt that is disputed to a collection agency - they need to get a court order first. And like you I would love to see them take it to court!

Please contact the European Consumer Council and complain - the more the merrier and hopefully they will get closed down once and for all.

Lyz_Fox

I am another one who wished I had read the reports on them, placed my order for what I believed was 348, went to their confirmation screen and clicked on the no I don't want extras box, this then produced a red pop up which went to the right hand side of the screen covering the magic service charge amount and this pop up only vanished upon pressing complete transaction.
Having followed your advice on here I re did the process and I also noticed that it automatically suggests the visa electron card which has no charge so that when I removed the pop up this time round there was still no charge, but then when I selected visa debit all of a sudden the charges re appeared?!!! This is a very bad company!
When I rang up their CS I was advised that the pop up is nothing to do with them and they are not responsible for how it looks on my screen even if it is hiding part of it!
I advised that I would be in contact with my bank to cancel this transaction as this was not what I authorised, they then advised that they will take me to court for the money? will they & should I ??
Thank you
Lyz