Theory test issues

regional

Hello. My husband booked a theory test for our son through a company on the internet not realising it was not through the official gov/uk channel.The website claims that the test date will be issued in 7 days but that was over 6 weeks ago and despite emails,phone calls (£1.50 per minute ) and sending a recorded letter we have heard nothing.
He paid the £50 upfront on his credit card.
The company in question is a Ltd company based in Birmingham.
Has anyone else had such problems ?
Can he claim the money back off his credit card or is the small claims court are next option ?
Thanking you in anticipation.

frugal_mike

Call the credit card up and see if they will help. The transaction was not more than £100 so they dont have a legal obligation to help, but they may still do a chargeback anyway.

regional

Thanks Mike,will do.

Buzby

If all the information on the website was stated and accurate, then the CC company may well refuse a refund request. What works for you is you contacted the merchant and had no reply. Further, they are not allowed to have a customer service number that uses rates higher than National rate (Same as a 01. 02, or 03. This changed last month.

Good luck.

frugal_mike

Op isn't after a refund just because it wasn't the official site, but because they didn't deliver what was paid for: a date for a test within 7 days.

regional

Thanks Buzby excellent info !

Pollycat

frugal_mike wrote: »

Op isn't after a refund just because it wasn't the official site, but because they didn't deliver what was paid for: a date for a test within 7 days.

I agree with this.

Your approach to the credit card company should be that you paid for a service which wasn't supplied within the timescales stated in their T&Cs - and still hasn't.

Buzby

redcard wrote: »

There really are enough idiots to keep 100s of these companies afloat. It's quite an impressive business model.

Inclined to agree. The fact that my wife was caught out with a Turkish Visa scam (where she paid £55 instead of £14) as recently as 4 weeks ago is a case in point. She just assumed.

She won't in the future! She was refunded by the CC company, but only because their website design meant if you used a tablet, no pricing information was disclosed. (It would only be seen in a box that wS not displayed on tablet browsers.

Hopefully, the number of folk who do get caught will learn and the model fail to be viable... But it might take a while!

Pollycat

Buzby wrote: »

Inclined to agree. The fact that my wife was caught out with a Turkish Visa scam (where she paid £55 instead of £14) as recently as 4 weeks ago is a case in point. She just assumed.

She won't in the future! She was refunded by the CC company, but only because their website design meant if you used a tablet, no pricing information was disclosed. (It would only be seen in a box that wS not displayed on tablet browsers.

Hopefully, the number of folk who do get caught will learn and the model fail to be viable... But it might take a while!

I think there has been some activity by the Government to stop these companies from appearing at the top of Google searches.

But - like it or not - most of them are operating legally.

There's an amazing amount of different services that they have got their fingers into, including;
passports
EHIC
driving tests
driving theory tests
ESTA
Turkish visas (as your wife knows)

and even - fishing rod licences. :eek:

regional

Thanks guys. I do hope redcar is not referring to us as "idiots" we are both usually very careful with purchasing anything on the internet and we can all make mistakes.

forgotmyname

Never click ANY google adverts. Always check the websites are GOV ones.