Go Ballooning

gazzcrawford

I had a hot balloon ride booked for tomorrow 05/04/2013, With the company Go Ballooning. I have just gone to check the weather-line to check whether it was on / going to be cancelled due to the high winds and I got their website to see the following message:

The Company is deeply saddened to advise that after successfully trading for over 25 years and flying many tens of thousands of customers we have had to take the very difficult decision to cease trading.

The company has been and will continue to work with the liquidator to attempt to formulate a solution for customers.

This site will be updated on Tuesday 9th April with further information.

My girlfriend purchase us the flights for Christmas 2011. During 2012 we booked 5 flights, all of which were cancelled due to bad weather. Go Ballooning allowed us to carry our flights over to the 2013 season, tomorrow was our first attempt.

The tickets cost £210 and we are very keen to receive a full refund as we didn't get to fly on the balloon! Can you please give us any help or advice to help us get a full refund?

spacey2012

You have become a creditor .
One that is last in line for anything left, you can put in a claim with the receivers and anything left after preferential creditors are paid in full is divided amongst those left on a penny in the pound ratio fairly .
The money is most likely gone.
Sorry, but that is the danger of using a Limited Company.

twiglet80

I wouldn't hold out too much hope I am sad to say. They have literally thousands of passengers on their books who are all in the same situation as you. It's heartbreaking. They are, always have been and always will be a terrible company with terrible customer service and terrible morals. They have not only screwed over thousands of paying customers but also the entire ballooning industry with their unobtainably cheap prices. There business model was always to sell thousands of vouchers a year at rock bottom price, under cutting all other operators by massive amounts, with no intention to fly these people as they did not have the equipment or Pilots to do so. This has all been building up over the years to this day. They knew what they were doing and no doubt have walked away with their matching Range Rovers and large Country Estate. Good luck to them. I can sleep at night as I have morals. They clearly don't.

I really hope you get something back from them. Might I suggest a visit to see them personally?!?!?! You could try your credit card company if that is how you paid - but I fear it was too long ago for them to be intersted, but worth lodging a request at least. Otherwise, get in line with the rest of the passengers!

Really sorry for you.
x

twiglet80

Can I also just add that as I am in the ballooning industry I understand the business. Go Ballooning and their 'business strategy' are totally unique, the rest of us (in this very small industry) are all small family run businesses doing it for the genuine love of ballooning. The only other national operator that was of a similar size to Go Ballooning are Virgin who are far from a family run business.

I would always recommend doing business with local companies, pariticuarly for something like a balloon flight, you know where they are and they know that if they mess up there will be hundreds of unhappy people on their doorstep in not very long, i.e. don't poo on your own doorstep!

Think that makes sense!! Shop local!!!

twiglet80

Should you wish to pursue this any further, Phil & Sandra Hossack who owned Go Ballooning also own another 2 companies, govouchers.co.uk and skypower.co.uk - worth taking a look I would have thought. Interestingly they are still selling balloon flight vouchers on Go Voucher - a bit cheeky I think.

Every little helps..

Amz456

In this same situation think I've lost £300 but had asked for a refund last year and was told they could offer me only 20% which I thought was a joke ,they were still advertising Easter deals on Monday even tho they would if seen this coming

Amz456

A friend called go voucher they said if you Bought balloon
Flight through go voucher you possibly can exchange but if you booked just through go ballooning then no help at all

anon-flyer

there has been feelings within the ballooning industry for years that it was only a matter of time before go ballooning went splat (as it has now done) simply because they appeared to be cutting their margins too far and leaving themselves in the position where there was little to no profit in actually flying their passengers, their terms and conditions seemed to be written with the express aim of kicking passengers off the books, 8 attempts to fly within 12 months voucher validity before you can get a 3 month extension (and then having to make a further 2 attempts within those 3 months)

Those of you with one of go ballooning freedom vouchers "may" have some recourse through go vouchers. since according to the terms and conditions of the vouchers they are redeemable against go vouchers experiences (look under section 4a of your terms or check them out via archive.org

another interesting snippet is that as recently as the 25 of march go vouchers was reporting itself as being "Cameron Flights Southern Ltd trading as Go vouchers" on their about us page whereas they are now reporting themselves to be "go vouchers limited"

with the change in limited company in mind I wonder whether holders of go vouchers sold under cameron flights will now find that they are unable to redeem their voucher (in theory they cant as they were sold by cameron flights southern limited NOT go vouchers limited, if they do redeem vouchers sold under the cameron flights company then it may raise a useful legal precedent)

Wywth

gazzcrawford wrote: »

I had a hot balloon ride booked for tomorrow 05/04/2013, With the company Go Ballooning. I have just gone to check the weather-line to check whether it was on / going to be cancelled due to the high winds and I got their website to see the following message:

The Company is deeply saddened to advise that after successfully trading for over 25 years and flying many tens of thousands of customers we have had to take the very difficult decision to cease trading.

The company has been and will continue to work with the liquidator to attempt to formulate a solution for customers.

This site will be updated on Tuesday 9th April with further information.

My girlfriend purchase us the flights for Christmas 2011. During 2012 we booked 5 flights, all of which were cancelled due to bad weather. Go Ballooning allowed us to carry our flights over to the 2013 season, tomorrow was our first attempt.

The tickets cost £210 and we are very keen to receive a full refund as we didn't get to fly on the balloon! Can you please give us any help or advice to help us get a full refund?

Since the company has gone into liquidation, your girlfriend will have to negotiate with the appointed liquidators. As she paid for goods that were not delivered or services that were not carried out, she is entitled to ask for her money to be returned. She should write to the liquidator enclosing proof. This could be a receipt, cheque stub or a credit card voucher. It is still unlikely that sheu will get her money back, however, as this depends on whether the company has enough assets to pay her.

If she paid using a credit card, she could also ask the credit card provider for a refund.

More information here:
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/c_supplier_has_gone_out_of_business.pdf

HTH

anon-flyer

Go Ballooning website has been updated with the name of the insolvency practitioners, advice on the site is to try a chargeback though credit card companies, doesnt sound promising for people getting money back.

figures thrown around on the news and online suggest 18,000 people affected, assuming that they all hold the lowest price vouchers that go ballooning sold (£79 that I can find) works out to over 1.4 million that they have in liability just to the customers (it's probably far higher since I have made no allowance for higher value vouchers).
generally speaking firms don't fold until the taxman gets involved so there is probably also a large liability in tax of one form or another (corporation tax / vat)

normally any money left in a company (or recovered) gets split up in the following order
1. VAT
2. any other taxes
3. Banks
4. Suppliers
5. Staff (wages owed etc)
6. Customers

it is rare for any money to be left by the 4th stage so if you are unable to get your money back via credit card companies I wouldn't hold you breath waiting for any money back

anon-flyer

following on from my last post...
Annual Accounts submitted to Companies House for the year up to 31/03/2012 reported...
'cash at bank' £154,811
'liabilities' £741,624
'net worth' £18,915
'assets' £293,359.

based on that I put them in the red by over 250,000 last year
then we have to allow for another year of fresh sales (liabilities) and a generally poor flying season (due to the weather)