Abbey have taken £800+ out of my account for a holiday 1.5 years ago

MarkyMarkD

Any advice? Yes, use a CREDIT card not a DEBIT card for this sort of transaction. Would avoid 90%+ of the problems you've experienced.

magyar

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Any advice? Yes, use a CREDIT card not a DEBIT card for this sort of transaction. Would avoid 90%+ of the problems you've experienced.

That's a fair point

- a credit card is far more likely to refuse a transaction which goes over your credit limit
- you can only end up more in debt to the credit card, it doesn't affect direct debts etc
- they can 'freeze' a disputed transaction until it's been proven to be real
- your contract is legally with the credit card company, not the travel agent; and so you have some additional protection

(all of this is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, of course... )

milkydrink

They do charge extra now for using a credit card.

milkydrink

First Choice holiday reference 180503 Summer 06.

21 Jul. 07

Dear Sir/Madam

Copies of this will be going to First Choice, The Abbey Bank, & EVERY consumer group, newspaper & holiday internet website I can possibly think of.
I am naming & shaming First Choice & the Abbey publicly.

In autumn 2005 we booked a holiday with First Choice.

On 28th February 2006 we rang to pay the balance of £807.40, the transaction was processed & we were told all was paid & accepted.

We moved in here the end of January 2006 & the place was in a major state & every room needed ripping apart & redoing, so we spend February 2006 – July 2006, doing major DIY & having work done. The whole house was in upheaval & that’s why I cannot be exactly sure of dates.

A little while (can’t remember how long) after the 28th February 2006 we received a letter from First Choice apologising & saying our 28th February payment wasn’t processed correctly & they would need to call for the payment again. I rang First Choice & they said there was some sort of glitch on ALL card payments taken by them on that date & they had to resubmit them all. We said OK as all appeared above board. Now I know you might be surprised that I didn’t notice that £807.40 had not been taken, but we had to take out two loans to do the work needed on this home & money was leaving the account left right & centre.

We had our holiday in May 2006 & all was well.

Fast forward over a year to 28th June 2007, my husband rang me to say his bank had rung him from the fraud department about a transaction for First Choice for £807.40; he said he couldn’t make head nor tail of what they were talking about & told them to ring me. They did. They said as the card used for payment had expired it flagged up as a fraudulent transaction. I explained we had paid for that holiday nearly 18 months ago & I that it wasn’t a legitimate transaction & THEY WERE NOT TO PAY IT. She said OK.

I phoned First Choice who said it wasn’t them calling for the money & it must be fraudulent. They said they would pass it on to their accounts department who would look into it further. The next day the 29th June 2007 the accounts department rang to confirm that as far as they were concerned we had paid for our holiday the year before & the transaction must be a mistake. As we had told our bank that it was a mistake & not to pay it we were not worried as we assumed they would follow our instructions with what to do with our money.

A couple of weeks later (early to mid July 2007) we started getting letters bouncing all our direct debits & being charged £30 by the bank for each one. It was a Friday evening when we got home from work when we got the first one & looked on the internet banking & saw that they had actually paid out the £807.40 to First Choice, but strangely on the online bank statement they had it sandwiched between two 2nd July 2007 transactions (so I suspect this is the day that it actually happened), but ACTUALLY dated as 4th June 2007. We rang the bank to be told they couldn’t sort it out at the weekend or after hours, but gave us a number to call on Monday. I did mention about the date query to the man at the Abbey I spoke to & he said not to worry it was probably a printing error.

My husband called them on Monday & they said they couldn’t stop it as the card payment was an authorised transaction. They said we must take it up with First choice.

Then we got our bank statement & something REALLY strange was on it. We know as of the 28th June that the £807.40 payment had NOT been physically processed, but for the purposes of the paper statement have it ACTUALLY listed as 4th June 2007!!! They have backed dated it for the purposes of the bank statement, our account did not actually look like this between 4th June 2007 & the 28th June 2007, but by backing dating it they have adjusted & maximised the bank charges. They couldn’t physically bounce ones they had already paid so instead they have charged us £30 for each one!!! Then after the 2 July loads were bounced & they charged us £30 & later £35 for those too. They also charged us £20 for going over our overdraft limit.
We have an overdraft facility of £1,000 & on the day the paid this transaction we were £500 ish overdrawn, so paying this EXPIRED TRANSACTION on this EXPIRED CARD pushed us £300 OVER our agreed limit. If we had tried to go over the £1,000 for ANYTHING else they would have bounced it, they have already once or twice in the past, so why pay this? Also to actually back date for the purposes of maximising bank charges is totally unfair. The £807.40 was not paid from our account on the 4th June 2007; it was not paid till nearly 4 weeks later, its dishonest profiteering of the Abbey to do this.

I called First Choice & spoke to someone who sounded very confused & tried to tell me that I actually had paid on the 28th February 2006, but had it refunded on the 11th May 2006. I said I was actually on holiday then with First Choice & unlikely to be phoning First Choice demanding any refunds. She said she would look into it. I actually had no confidence in her abilities to resolve this matter & decided to try another department in First Choice.

I thought I got lucky as a very nice woman who answered the phone seemed to understand the complete mess of what I was saying to her & said she would put me through to banking who would be able to sort this out.
She put me through to a man in accounts who listened & checked on the system & agreed we had paid in full on 8th June 2006 (I was surprised it was that late in the year, but as I said I can’t remember exactly). He said it must be a fault with “Streamline” the company who handles the card transactions on behalf of First Choice, as they had already messed up on my 28th February 2006 balance payment. They wanted to see my husbands bank statement as proof of bank charges incurred & the £807.40 payment, as I live not too far from them I brought them down to him in person (I though it would help speed things up). They also asked by phone a couple of times for my husbands debit card number to search for the transaction., I kept trying to explain that possibly the reason they couldn’t find the transaction is because it was on an old expired card, on an old expired card number. As we didn’t have the card anymore we couldn’t give them the number. We could only give them the current number (which I did, despite being very nervous they would use that to take yet more money from the account by “mistake”).

I can only deal with this on my one day off in the week, which was the Wednesday I took the statements down to them. I work from 8am – 6pm for the NHS in a hospital ward the other 4 “working” days of the week, so taking personal calls is not possible. I asked them to email me in future (it also has the added bonus of at least having some proof of what’s been said to us about it), here are two emails (& my responses to them) received last Thursday & Friday.

In a message dated 19/07/2007 09:41:04 GMT Standard Time, [EMAIL="David.Owen@firstchoice.co.uk"]David.Owen@firstchoice.co.uk[/EMAIL] writes:
Dear Mrs Evans

Continuing with our discussion yesterday, i have passed on your
statement to my manager and there is some information we would require.
Would it be possible to obtain the following:-
1) The statement showing the original payment from First Choice in the
period around 8th June 2006 for the value of £807.40 We don't have these.
2) The authorisation code for the transaction for £807.40 on the 4th June
2007. We didn't authorise it, so we don't have an authorisation code. You only get those when you pay for something over the phone, don't you? We knew NOTHING about the payment till after it had been taken.


To make it easier for you, you can authorise your bank to speak to my
manager Amanda Nicholls about this transaction only, where Amanda can
obtain all the details that are necessary. Amanda's direct number is 01293
457633. Amanda is leaving tomorrow at 3, so her working hours are 9am-3pm,
today and tomorrow... How do we do this?

Sorry for the trouble that has been caused by this...

Yours Sincerely

David Owen
01293 457627
Ext: 7627
Email: [EMAIL="david.owen@firstchoice.co.uk"]david.owen@firstchoice.co.uk[/EMAIL]

The second…….

In a message dated 20/07/2007 09:57:07 GMT Standard Time, [EMAIL="Amanda.L.Nicholls@firstchoice.co.uk"]Amanda.L.Nicholls@firstchoice.co.uk[/EMAIL] writes:
Dear Mrs Evans,

I need to obtain proof that your credit card or bank account was debited in
June 2006, (why, is there a doubt that we have paid for this holiday?) for the delayed February transaction and again in June 2007.I have provided you with last months statement, which clearly shows this transaction.
At this stage I cannot establish why this has occurred until I have more
information. A transaction is usually debited when a "file" with the
transaction details is passed to the card issuer, we have not submitted a
file since June 2006 with this information. At this stage I believe this
has not happened from our end. It is highly unusual for this type of error
to occur. I think you will find that EVERYONE, every single customer who paid you money by card on 28th Feb 06 there was a mess up by First Choices card process, I had a letter from First Choice just after & I rang to confirm & I was told that there WAS A FILE problem with ALL the 28th February 06 card transactions. Are you saying that you DID NOT call the money from my account on June this year 07??? Because you clearly did. The company you use has already made numerous mistakes regarding mine (& many others payments). If you are saying you have not called the money from my husbands account (when you clearly have - the bank said it was First Choice, the amount was EXACTLY the same as our 06 holiday balance) then I have no choice but to go to the financial ombudsman, Watchdog, Holidays from hell, the small claims court & post on the MANY internet websites that I am a member of.

The authorisation code is not something the customer sees, this works like
an identification number for the transaction.
I will be happy to go through some of the transactional data with your
bank, due to data protection, this can only be done if you authorise the
bank to discuss this with me. If you are so INSISTENT that First Choice HAS NOT called this money, then will you please explain this to our bank & make them refund the money & the charges they have hit us with?

I did a search on our system for the card number ending 5356, which your
husband holds and this has not been used. It was an OLD card, THE CARD HAD EXPIRED. HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY THIS? I DON'T HAVE THE CARD NUMBER BECAUSE THE CARD IS CHOPPED UP & IN THE BIN, AS THE TRANSACTION IS SO OLD. The card number you took that money on IS NOT the same as the card my husband is using now.

I will try and resolve as much of this today as I can for you,
unfortunately today is my last day at First Choice. I have updated my
manager with all of the details relating to this issue and she will ensure
this is resolved to a satisfactory conclusion. I only have a week BEFORE £1,000 worth of bank charges are ALSO taken from our account; will you PLEASE help us to sort this out?

On the matter of your bank charges, I can't believe your bank want to
charge yet another £10.00 when they have already charged you for a
transaction you did not authorise them to take.It’s not my bank that wants to charge for the statements it’s the credit card company. Our bank has already hit us with £1,000 worth of charges due to this. That's how banks make money, so they are not slow about whacking on the charges.



Thanks & Regards,

Mandy Nicholls
Specialist Banking – Team Leader
0870 241 0739 – Option 2


e-mail:amanda.l.nicholls@firstchoice.co.uk

The Abbey are going to hit us with nearly £1,000 (& still counting) of bank charges on the 31st July 2007 & we will be crippled. We haven’t been able to pay any bills or council tax this month. We have had to cancel all our direct debits from both banks. As my husband gives me money to put into mine to cover my few direct debits. We are being hit with bank charges from both banks, charges from the companies we have not paid in the last month. Even charges from companies that offer discounts for paying by direct debit are charging us as we have cancelled the direct debit.
It’s an awful situation to be in. We can’t seem to get an answer from anyone. The Abbey blame First Choice & First Choice are hinting in the last paragraph on that letter that it’s the banks fault not theirs!

Can anyone help us?

Yours very hopefully

Steven & Kim Evans

MarkyMarkD

kimevans wrote: »

They do charge extra now for using a credit card.

I am well aware of that. But I'm also well aware of the huge benefits that you get in exchange for that cost - i.e. the ability to recover funds from the credit card company, not the tour operator/travel agent, if something goes wrong. IMHO it's well worth 2% or whatever (£16 on your £800 holiday payment). Not to mention the fact that your current account doesn't get screwed up when something goes wrong. Nor that you can get cashback in any case if you use the right credit card.

MarkyMarkD

kimevans wrote: »

I thought I got lucky as a very nice woman who answered the phone seemed to understand the complete mess of what I was saying to her & said she would put me through to banking who would be able to sort this out.
She put me through to a man in accounts who listened & checked on the system & agreed we had paid in full on 8th June 2007 (I was surprised it was that late in the year, but as I said I can’t remember exactly). He said it must be a fault with “Streamline” the company who handles the card transactions on behalf of First Choice, as they had already messed up on my 28th February 2006 balance payment.

You mean 2006 in this instance.

There's no such entity as "Abbey Bank", it's just called "Abbey". If you say "my bank, Abbey" it would be a lot clearer and more correct.

Repeatedly talking about being in a financial shambles doesn't strengthen your case. It's not your job to notice whether the transaction's hit your account or not, it's their job to take payment as and when they said they would.

Brevity is worth more than length in this sort of letter and it makes it more likely you'll get a successful resolution.

milkydrink

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

You mean 2006 in this instance. Thank you, yes I do

There's no such entity as "Abbey Bank", it's just called "Abbey". If you say "my bank, Abbey" it would be a lot clearer and more correct.

Repeatedly talking about being in a financial shambles doesn't strengthen your case. It's not your job to notice whether the transaction's hit your account or not, it's their job to take payment as and when they said they would. I'm in a financial shambles because the stole £800+ out of my account & then to add insult to injury backdated it about a month to maximise the effect & bank charges. I know that transaction did NOT physically happen then, I even pointed it out to someone on Abbeys helpline, they said then it was a type error, not to worry, but I know now what it mean, EXTRA CHARGES.

Brevity is worth more than length in this sort of letter and it makes it more likely you'll get a successful resolution.

Perhaps, but I felt it better to explain in full, step by step. Brevity would have been nice, but as it happened over nearly 2 years from booking to now, it took some lengthy explaining.

milkydrink

Surprise surprise Abbeys website doesn't seem to be working properly & I can't email them. Does anyone have any idea where I can find email addresses for anyone it would be worth sending to at Abbey? I'm thinking the man at the top especially?
The same for First Choice?

MarkyMarkD

kimevans wrote: »

I'm in a financial shambles because the stole £800+ out of my account & then to add insult to injury backdated it about a month to maximise the effect & bank charges. I know that transaction did NOT physically happen then, I even pointed it out to someone on Abbeys helpline, they said then it was a type error, not to worry, but I know now what it mean, EXTRA CHARGES.

No, no. I didn't mean that bit. I mean you shouldn't say that the reason you didn't notice the money leaving your account (or not) in 2006 was because you were in a financial shambles. That's none of their business and just makes you look incompetent.

Being in a financial mess NOW because of FC's !!!!-up is fine to mention.

Re the e-mail addresses, don't e-mail it at all. Fax it to the chief executive's office. Try: http://www.banking-business-review.com/companyprofile.asp?guid=5DD7F010-3B9C-4675-AC9E-2F8BE330E314&CType=View for Abbey and http://jobs.brandrepublic.com/careerfile/detail/393/careers_with_first-choice-holidays-plc for First Choice.

Not necessarily the direct fax numbers for the top boys, but you can always ring up and ask for the relevant number or just use the generic fax numbers on those links.

milkydrink

Oh, I didn't really mean we were in a financial shambles, just that we didn't keep tabs on transactions, as we had acros supporting our living room on a removal of a supporting wall job that over-ran, the bathrrom being ripped out, the kitchen being ripped out, EVERY part of the house being re-decorated, a partical re-wire (& new circuit board & that earthing in the bathroom & other electrical bits), new gas pipe installed from meter to boiler, window out, french door in & door out & window in, some rads moved & removed. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE STATE WE WERE IN!!!

Thanks for the numbers.