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confusedabout_2

Hello

I booked a £4000 holiday to Mexico at the beginning of the year. I paid £500 deposit at the time. A couple of weeks after booking a property I had been looking to buy for a number of years came on the market. I sold my house and moved. As I had spent quite a bit of money to move I didn't really want to continue with the holiday.

The holiday is with Thomas Cook booked through a travel agent. I asked about using the deposit and transferring to a cheaper holiday. After many phone calls and emails I was told to change would cost nearly all of the £500. I decided to cut my losses and book a break with another agent.

I had complained to the original company about the way I was treated and I wasntrtaken seriously. I was promised a manager would call me but they didn't. I rang their admin team to cancel the holiday.

I would have been due to pay the remaining balance on 4the sept but thought the matter was dealt with. I received an email last week to say the balance of the Mexico holiday was now overdue. Then yesterday I received a mail from their sales manager to say I was now responsible for 90% of the total balance as cancellation.

Where do I stand. I have paid £500 and was prepared to lose it. If I haven't paid any of the remaining balance can anyone recover it from me? No one asked me to put my cancellation in writing, but someone hasn't done their job. I don't intend to pay any further money but wondered what my stance should be.

Thanks

Obviously_the_best

If it's in the contract you signed, which by the looks of it was a low deposit one, yes, they can.

visidigi

What have you got in writing about not proceeding? Either from you or TC?

confusedabout_2

I never signed a contract as this was done over the phone with the travel company who organised with Thomas Cook. When I had problems with the deposit Thomas Cook did not want to know and told me to deal with agent.

I have nothing in writing about cancellation as no one ever told me I had to do this until it was past the date that I needed to pay full balance by.

I am not sure how Thomas Cook can recover being there is no signed contract, and that I haven't paid anything more than £500 so it is up to me to send any balance to them

Moto2

I'd just tell them you cancelled and you won't be paying any more.
See what they do

teambathmat

Hi there am guessing you called Thomas Cook and enquired about changing the holiday to a cheaper deal and then found out that it would cost extra to transfer holiday so decided not to bother,......but did you actually tell TC that you then wanted to cancel it? Or did you just assume you would just lose your deposit if you didn't pay anymore?... Did you actually tell/write to Thomas cook and ask it to be cancelled?

opinions4u

I never signed a contract as this was done over the phone

But you agreed to a contract by phone.

Did they send you any details?

Did you ever cancel or did you just, eventually, do nothing?

littlereddevil

You did form a contract if you paid a deposit

Voyager2002

littlereddevil wrote: »

You did form a contract if you paid a deposit

Indeed.

You may have decided to cancel, but did you tell them, even by telephone? If you cancelled and they failed to record the fact, they are at fault. If you did not tell them, then you are bound by your contract and legally obliged to pay them: they can pursue the funds in the same way as for any other debt (CCJ; bailiffs, and so forth).

comeandgo

Contracts dont have to be written to be agreed, offer and acceptance and with you paying the deposit that would be acceptance. How will they get their money? For £4,500 then it would be worth their while taking you to court.

stephb34

Tricky one here, normally i'd side with the travel agent but here's my opinion on it. If £500 was your full deposit which I think it is, then you shouldn't have to pay anymore if you don't want the holiday. Basically a good travel agent collects your final balance before the tour op requires the balance so the TA has some leeway to sort any discrepancies like this before it goes into cancellation. We collect balances at 14 weeks, goes into cancellation at 10 weeks (on average), so the day after the balance was due we would ring and speak to you and ask if you have forgotten your balance was due, if we don't get to speak to you then we would send you a letter. Up until the day before the 10 week period we would keep trying to contact you if we couldn't then on that day your holiday would be cancelled by our manager as all that was needed is the deposit. Only a poor manager would let it go into cancellation charges as this would then be a write off to the shop. So the TA you have booked with have messed up by not contacting you as soon as the balance was due. If they had contacted you immediately you could then have said I've cancelled this holiday and if they said no you haven't then they could have cancelled it then, with only the loss of £500 to you. So legally no I don't think you can be made to pay anymore, but they may try and pressure you to.