Help P&O Cruises Emptied My Bank Account

gaztop692000

Looking for some help / advice.

Brief rundown of what happened.

Tried to book a cruise for 6 people in 3 cabins for a cruise next august on sunday night. Filled all the details in etc filled in my payment details pressed PAY and the web site came up with an error and told me to try again, which I did three times with the same result. At this point we left it and rang them 9am Monday morning to book on the phone.

This was when we realised as my card was declined and a call to the bank confirm that each time there was an 'error' they had still taken the money and cleared my account of nearly £2000.

P&O have admitted it was there fault and the money was back in my account on Thursday this week.

The problem that I have is that on monday I had £20 to my name, as my saving account had been emptied due to me booking a last minute holiday last week, and I can prove this via my bank statements etc.

The issue is I am self employed and I was effectively unable to trade until Thursday due to no funds, this cost me personally £360 cash as I had to pay 2 guys booked to do a job on wednesday that i could not supply the materials for and then 2 days off work for me as no fuel in my car, my daily rate £180 per day.

So a total loss to me of £720, all of which I can prove with paperwork.

So far P&O have offered me £200 on board credit or the option of cancelling the cruise without penalty.

Sorry for the long post but just wondered if anyone has any suggestions, small claims court etc ?

thanks in advance

getmore4less

Always use a creditcard for deposits

agrinnall

And if an online payment comes up with an error NEVER repeat it without first checking to see if it has gone through or not.

I doubt if you'd get anywhere pursuing this through the courts, while P&O have admitted there was a problem they didn't force you to retry the booking several times.

newcook

rather than jumping in all guns blazing, why not write a (polite) letter to the company stating that while £200 is a nice offer it doesnt cover anywhere near your loss. dont tell them what you demand back, just that you would like them to reconsider the offer.

I think most businesses would rather go back to the drawing board to come up with a more appropriate offer when someone is being polite.

Archergirl

Don't you have a credit card you could have got materials and fuel with? All seems a bit odd to me.