Thomas Cook Small Claims Court

monkeybanjo

Good evening,


We have recently had cause to cancel a booking with Thomas Cook and now we are not getting our deposit back...one thing following another, have decided to take them to the small claims court due next week.


I know full well that there are T&C's and we did sign their paperwork that details the requirement to pay.


my question is partly has anyone taken this kind of action before and won? and secondly, would we have grounds to ask the judge to consider 2 or 3 different things such as we were never 'told' to read the T&C's and the amount of pressure exerted by the store staff we felt (as we were given wrong information regarding the flights cost?) or will the judge just want to hear one argument?


I realise this is more complicated and involved and anyone reading this won't have all the facts but a general direction would be good..


Thanks in advance,


Monkeybanjo (newbie)

callum9999

monkeybanjo wrote: »

Good evening,


We have recently had cause to cancel a booking with Thomas Cook and now we are not getting our deposit back...one thing following another, have decided to take them to the small claims court due next week.


I know full well that there are T&C's and we did sign their paperwork that details the requirement to pay.


my question is partly has anyone taken this kind of action before and won? and secondly, would we have grounds to ask the judge to consider 2 or 3 different things such as we were never 'told' to read the T&C's and the amount of pressure exerted by the store staff we felt (as we were given wrong information regarding the flights cost?) or will the judge just want to hear one argument?


I realise this is more complicated and involved and anyone reading this won't have all the facts but a general direction would be good..


Thanks in advance,


Monkeybanjo (newbie)

I'm fairly certain you were "told" to read the T&Cs - if the agent didn't tell you to, then the paperwork itself did (unless the staff covered up the text and made you sign it blind?).

They'll listen to any reasonable argument you have. The T&Cs argument is most likely a non-starter but the flights argument may be ok. In what way were you given wrong information about the cost? Is the wrong information on the paperwork you signed? And what were the other issues?

bagand96

You need to explain the full circumstances around why you are cancelling and what you feel Thomas Cook have done wrong to get any useful advice.

However if you signed the T&Cs you entered into a contract and if that said the deposit was non refundable, you'd need some good mitigating circumstances to find Thomas Cook in breach of that and get it overturned.

Alan_Bowen

The difficulty is that every tour operator and agent has similar terms that state deposits are non refundable. This means the court may assume that even if you were not specifically told about the actual term, you would have known about a similar term in previous bookings whether with TC or not.

I think your chances of success are slim unless TC forget to turn up on the day, however if you are suggesting this mislead you about flight prices, that might be a different story. As suggested above, we need more information before we can advise but were you not given an invoice that showed the prices at the time you booked? My concern is that you may simply lose more money in going to court unless you have evidence of misleading information and if they do turn up it will be one person's word against another, hence the need to check your paperwork which may prove your case, or equally destroy it!

richardw

There have been reports about a deposit case with Thomson, do a thorough search using Google to try and find it.

Do take care if you pursue this, remember to behave whiter than white and continually ask yourself if you are being 'reasonable'.

Pollycat

What efforts have you made to try to resolve this with either the branch you booked in or directly with Thomas Cook?
Or have you just decided to go the small claims route first?

How did it happen that you were?:

monkeybanjo wrote: »

(as we were given wrong information regarding the flights cost?)

Were you not given details of the flight cost when you originally booked?

Did the branch contact you later to tell you the flight cost has increased?

monkeybanjo

Hi all, thank you so much for the replies to date. I hadn't intended in going in too much detail but the outline of our situations is:


My partner went in to speak to the sales assistant in store around July 2014 and was given a price for a 3 day stop in New York which she thought was reasonable. I suggested we go and speak to them after I finish work and so hurried over just before they were closing for the day. at this point we spoke to another rep who told us that there was no discount and in fact the price had gone up and would possibly continue to increase, it felt at that time like a very pressured environment, we were beginning to panic and in the hope that the price wouldn't go up any more, we handed over the deposit....


as soon as we left the store we talked and within minutes we decided that it would be too costly, we returned to the store only to find it closed up. I called the next day (Saturday)and managed to speak to the original rep who told us that the price hadn't infact increased at all, the other rep hadn't imputed a code, but as far as the deposit was concerned that wasn't something he could do and was told to ring back on Monday to speak to the manager..


What I suppose, in summation is, I know we signed, and I know there is legally very little that can be done, but we were never 'told' that the deposit is non refundable. I imagine that as a consumer, I would be allowed to cancel something if i'd only just handed over money.. that's what the basis of this case is.. it should be made clear that it's non refundable.


We are due in court this Friday and I completely understand that we may be on a looser here but felt a moral sense that we at least try..


failing that, they may not turn up..

monkeybanjo

ps, there was a mediation which was offered as an alternative to court and we accepted but TC refused.

Pollycat

monkeybanjo wrote: »

My partner went in to speak to the sales assistant in store around July 2014 and was given a price for a 3 day stop in New York which she thought was reasonable. I suggested we go and speak to them after I finish work and so hurried over just before they were closing for the day. at this point we spoke to another rep who told us that there was no discount and in fact the price had gone up and would possibly continue to increase, it felt at that time like a very pressured environment, we were beginning to panic and in the hope that the price wouldn't go up any more, we handed over the deposit....

as soon as we left the store we talked and within minutes we decided that it would be too costly, we returned to the store only to find it closed up. I called the next day (Saturday)and managed to speak to the original rep who told us that the price hadn't infact increased at all, the other rep hadn't imputed a code, but as far as the deposit was concerned that wasn't something he could do and was told to ring back on Monday to speak to the manager..

Are you saying that you could have had the flights for the price the 1st rep quoted you.
Or were you fixed to the higher price that the 2nd rep quoted you?

If you had the flights for the price you were originally quoted for (which your partner thought was reasonable) why do you now want to cancel and get your deposit back?


If I were Thomas Cook that is a question I'd be asking when you go to court.

monkeybanjo wrote: »

What I suppose, in summation is, I know we signed, and I know there is legally very little that can be done, but we were never 'told' that the deposit is non refundable. I imagine that as a consumer, I would be allowed to cancel something if i'd only just handed over money.. that's what the basis of this case is.. it should be made clear that it's non refundable.

Holidays/flights is one area where there is no cooling off period.

I don't know if a court would agree that you would need to be told that a deposit was non-refundable..

steve1500

I would guess TC will come straight at you with the T&C's.


I think even a reasonable person would say, if you booked something & changed your mind, that is your decision.


If you book a railway ticket for tomorrow, and then decide to go by car , you would not expect the railway company to refund you - unless of course you bought a refundable ticket - assuming you can


What will it cost to cancel my booking? (Excludes late bookings)

If we receive notice of your cancellation more than 84 days before departure you will lose your deposit.
If we receive notice of your cancellation between 84 and 64 days before departure you will lose 30% of the cost of your holiday (or loss of deposit if greater).
If we receive notice of your cancellation between 63 and 50 days before departure you will lose 50% of the cost of your holiday.
If we receive notice of your cancellation between 49 and 29 days before departure you will lose 70% of the cost of your holiday.
If we receive notice of your cancellation between 28 and 15 days before departure you will lose 90% of the cost of your holiday.

callum9999

monkeybanjo wrote: »

Hi all, thank you so much for the replies to date. I hadn't intended in going in too much detail but the outline of our situations is:


My partner went in to speak to the sales assistant in store around July 2014 and was given a price for a 3 day stop in New York which she thought was reasonable. I suggested we go and speak to them after I finish work and so hurried over just before they were closing for the day. at this point we spoke to another rep who told us that there was no discount and in fact the price had gone up and would possibly continue to increase, it felt at that time like a very pressured environment, we were beginning to panic and in the hope that the price wouldn't go up any more, we handed over the deposit....


as soon as we left the store we talked and within minutes we decided that it would be too costly, we returned to the store only to find it closed up. I called the next day (Saturday)and managed to speak to the original rep who told us that the price hadn't infact increased at all, the other rep hadn't imputed a code, but as far as the deposit was concerned that wasn't something he could do and was told to ring back on Monday to speak to the manager..


What I suppose, in summation is, I know we signed, and I know there is legally very little that can be done, but we were never 'told' that the deposit is non refundable. I imagine that as a consumer, I would be allowed to cancel something if i'd only just handed over money.. that's what the basis of this case is.. it should be made clear that it's non refundable.


We are due in court this Friday and I completely understand that we may be on a looser here but felt a moral sense that we at least try..


failing that, they may not turn up..

I think I've come to the same conclusion from this as Pollycat. To clarify:

You were quoted £X
You went back later and were quoted £X+Y
You went back the next day and were quoted £X again.

You therefore got exactly what you originally asked for? You feeling "pressured" to make a deposit is on you and you alone, no-one forced you to. The only real claim is therefore that you didn't know it was non-refundable. Holiday deposits are non-refundable by nature (what purpose could they possibly serve if they were refundable?) and the T&Cs you chose to ignore presumably clearly spell that out.

Unless I've made a mistake there, I think your court case is laughably frivolous and will be dismissed by the judge. I'd certainly dismiss it immediately! I just hope you don't get any costs awarded against you on top of the money you've wasted on filing the claim (not that they will be overly excessive anyway).