Non-ABTA Registered Travel Agent Issue

NumbersGoAndCome

*edit* cleaned layout

Hello,

Please can you advise.

A holiday package had been booked costing more than 20k, it was to include luxury rooms, meals inclusive and private transport.

Upon arrival to the destination, no hotel room had been booked, we gave the travel agent the opportunity to resolve it and he kept voiding responsibility and putting the phone down. Eventually, after 3 hours of literal arguing and emotional headaches, we were given either low/economy rooms or the exit.

We were in one room for the night, then two rooms the next night. These were not luxury rooms, or connecting.

Our transport was cramped because the travel agent arranged for his friend to travel with us, we were not aware of this and did not pay any discount. Once we arrived he even asked us for some money!!

At the 2nd hotel they too had no rooms booked, especially not luxury rooms. The agent did not answer, this is where it all began to unravel. The agent had a friend in the city doing all this to customers in order to maximise profits, I spoke to him on the phone and he did not care at all. I then obtained a picture of an email sent to the hotel booking economy rooms a few hours before our arrival. Hungry, tired, angry and upset I decided it was best to go eat, note we have an old lady in a wheelchair with us that thought this was a luxury package. We got told no food has been added to our room, back we go arguing, I gave up and just paid and got the receipt for meals inclusive.

The rooms were APPAULING, I took video and picture evidence. The travel agent put the phone down on me and was rude (VERY RUDE) to my mother who kept asking why he did this, he was not concerned.

They then asked for more money or face cancellation of our return tickets, we agreed out of being bullied and were scared we would be left stranded.

This made the holiday very stressful and almost tearful, upon return to the UK he has been calling and now written a letter, threatening legal action.
Note:

- The original package was nearly 20k, he then added a few more thousand on at the end with the threat of losing the entire sum otherwise, this was paid under duress

- He has violated more than one regulation of the Package Travel Regulations 1992.

- His itinerary and description of service did not match up with the service we received

- He states he paid for the hotels and booked in advance, I guarantee he cancelled and did not pay

- He has “no refunds” in his terms and conditions and believes this voids him of negligence and breach of contract (not evident under Unfair Terms Act??)

- He is NOT ABTA registered, ATOL and IATA registered.

I want to know, should I seek compensation, complain to the Trading Standards with my evidence, is this possible fraud/criminal case?

Any help or thoughts is appreciated, I’m exhausted.

luci

Sounds horrendous.

Did you pay with a credit card?

Name the travel agent here and someone might be able to find some info on the company for you.

mo786uk

Report it to tradings standards (via CAB consumer helpline)

there may well have been criminal offences that TS can look into

note that even if there were criminal offences that has no bearing on your claim for a refund which you will have to pursue directly against the trader, or hopefully against the credit card ocmpany.

Alan_Bowen

Hello

Where do I begin? Exactly what sort of holiday was this and where did you find this agent in the first place? I assume the price included flights, if so then a package involving flights has to be sold under the protection of an ATOL licence and since April this year, not only is it a criminal offence, it may be imprisonable. It is possible that the agent was just an agent, selling someone else's package so check your documentation to see if anywhere it says 'this package is protected under ATOL number.....' If it does, then contact that company, not the incompetent idiot you appear to have booked it through. If there is no mention of ATOL anywhere, report the agent to the CAA Consumer Affairs team on 020 7453 6424, they can prosecute for selling without a licence.

Trading Standards can investigate breaches of the Package Travel Regulatuions and as you suggest there appear to be a number of them but do not expect a lot of help as our dear government has starved local councils, who run Trading Standards, of funds to investigate and unless you live in Birmingham, who have a vibrant ands active TS Department who do prosecute travel agents, do not expect TS to be able to get a refund for you.

Why did you pay more money whilst you were on holiday, if you had your return tickets, you should not have paid a penny more. I am not sure I understand the hotels that had luxury and economy rooms, this sounds very strange indeed, either a hotel is of a ceratin standard, or it isn't.

If you paid by credit card, make a formal complaint to the card issuer under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act and demand a refund on the basis that the services paid for were not provided, this doesn't guarantee a refund as the card company will then contact the travel agent for their comments, also make sure the debit on your card came from the company you thought you were doing business with and not a completely different comapny, at times non aligned agents use other companies to process cards in which case Section 75 may not apply.

Ultimately I think you are going to have to consider litigation, send one letter setting out succinctly what you expected and what was not provided either at all or to a satisfactory level, give them 14 days to reply and then sue. If its for an amount over £5000 costs can be awarded so a lawyer might assist or see if you have legal expenses insurance included in your household insurance policy. Otherwise, look up www.moneyclaim.gov.uk to issue proceedings yourself.

NumbersGoAndCome

Many thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately payment was issued by direct bank transfer.

A bit of background to this is that my mom had booked this and agreed a sum of circa 19k for a luxury package, I went along and never realized how he had abused her trust until I was on the holiday and saw it all slowly painfully unravel.

He actually received a total sum of nearly 25k, he achieved this by a numerous set of calls to her and then making statements like it will be cancelled or not go ahead, no refund etc and as she was doing it for her terminally ill mother I guess she trusted the guy as he was aware of all this. I wish I knew, I really do.

He is ATOL registered, a private limited company, and IATA registered. None of this has a regulator that I can go to.

I contacted his local Trading Standards but they have strict rulings that I must go to my local, ill funded, slow one . The same seems to apply when contacting MPs, so I will ask my local MP to review this matter to at least make him justify why he has acted in this way (would this be any use?).

The Citizens Advice have said they will pass it on to trading standards and they will choose whether or not to bother contacting me, I certainly hope so from what I have read this is possible fraud and criminal activity, in this link (sorry cant post link im new, BBC news uk-england-15600465) the guy got jailed for 15 months for much less. Though conditions were not cockroach standard, he has overcharged, bullied, intimidated and lied.

I have drafted a letter to him outlining the complaints, hes had them in text phone and email but he just keeps saying various responses such as "I could have cancelled your tickets while you were away", even though he directly received payment for said tickets, confirming it via email payment was received.

I priced the package myself, to the standard we received and it sums around 8,000 including 20% commission by an agent.

I don't want this to happen to anyone else, should I report this to the Fraud Authorities?

It is possible House Insurance includes Legal Expenses, would this be a viable route?

Alan_Bowen

Sorry I misread your first posting, I thought he was not ATOL or IATA registered. Trading Standards are unlikely to help unless they have had a number of serious complaints, then it makes it easier for them to ask the councillors to authorise payment for legal action but this will not get you compensation . You need to check all your insurance policies and see if any have legal expenses insurance, this would certainly cover advice and assistance to sue, which is what I think you may have to do. Thre police might look at it, but this would be very low priority I am afraid but you would have to show fraud or deception, neither of which is easy to prove. If you want it to stop happening again, name the company!

NumbersGoAndCome

The problem is that he has ripped a good bunch of people off over time, but the trip is a religious one, he knows that and exploits people over it. You may have heard of hajj and umrah scams, people have been jailed for fraud over this.

I don't want to name and shame as of yet but if you are buying a package do your due diligence first.

From the way things look, its likely to be a claim. I just found out that he may have received more than what was agreed yet asked for more money, he also tricked her by ringing and saying for a wheelchair user the car expense would be increased - the car we originally had was fine, and it was the same car in the itinerary. I also just saw hes asking for an amount he doesn't even know how he calculated. He's really ripped us off and just mocking us now.

*edit* Possible Legal expenses isn't in our insurance, it was last year but not this year. No idea why, wasn't cancelled.

Alan_Bowen

Ah, the old Hajj scam, the Department of Transport in conjunction with the CAA are having a clampdown on Hajj operators, many of whom have no licences at all. It is likely the company is known to the CAA so do call the number I mentioned above, the person who runs the department came back from holiday today and may well be able to offer advice, even though they can't actually get your money back