Not covered by credit card protection??

Person18

Hi,

Hope you can help.

I spent £109 on an emergency call out with Homeserve after my bathroom was flooded. Their engineer came out and claimed there was no leak but that water was probably leaking through the bathroom seal when I was showering. I took no more showers in my bathroom but the flooding got worse.

I called out another workman who identified a leak coming from the toilet and fixed it. He clearly stated Homeserve had got it wrong.

I obviously want my £109 back and phoned my credit card company as I had paid using my First Durect Visa credit card, thinking it would give me additional protection. However I was surprised when they told me I had to put in a claim with their Disputes team and that Homeserve would probably deny this and I would NOT get my money back potentially.

I was lead to believe that the credit card company (First Direct Visa) would have to give me my money back if I so wished given the failure of service?

Am I wrong? What would I need to do to claim money back from credit card?

McKneff

I believe you are wrong.


S75 covers for goods only and not services.


Have you tried contacting Homeserve, I get the impression that you have gone straight to the CC company.


Try Homeserve and see what they say.

Person18

Thank you. I didn't know that.

I've drafted a complaint letter to Homeserve which I will be sending. I was told "CEO complaint" is the way to address the letter. I thought I'd speak to my credit card company in the meantime to find out where I stood but now know services are not covered.

DevCoder

Again, you've been told wrong.

You follow their complaints procedure, you can escalate it to CEO's/ FOS / Whatever once you have exhausted the official complaints route.

Person18

Can I ask with regards to that, I was told your complaint would be taken a lot more seriously if you go straight to the CEO rather than go through their official route, where they will just give you a standard response and the whole thing would take a lot longer.

Also that legally CEO complaints have to be monitored, so it is in the interest of the company to sort out the complaint quickly?

Is this not right? What are the disadvantage of going straight to CEO?

Any advice much appreciated

Stuart107

Person18 wrote: »

What are the disadvantage of going straight to CEO?

One disadvantage - if you start at the bottom you can complain higher in the organization if you don't like the first answer but that's rather tricky if you start at the "CEO" since they're rather unlikely to be overruled!

eddddy

McKneff wrote: »

S75 covers for goods only and not services.

No, it's goods and services.

The FOS website confirms this:

For section 75 to apply, certain conditions must be met. Most credit card purchases will be covered, but:

the cash price of the goods or services must be more than £100 and not more than £30,000...

Link: http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/31/creditcards-31.htm

Person18

So would I be able to claim my £109 back through S75 from credit card company?

It would be less stress if I had this protection!

eskbanker

Person18 wrote: »

So would I be able to claim my £109 back through S75 from credit card company?

It would be less stress if I had this protection!

Section 75 makes the credit card company equally as liable as the merchant, no more, no less, for eligible purchases (of which this does seem to be one as I see it). However, it doesn't give some sort of automatic refund facility though, you still have to make a case to them in the same way you would with the merchant, which is why the usual recommendation is to go to the merchant first, even though this isn't strictly necessary from a legal perspective.

In this particular case, playing devil's advocate, it doesn't sound completely cut and dried and there is obviously a difference of professional opinion between the two engineers, hence the reaction you got from First Direct. So, you may be able to convince either Homeserve or First Direct that you should be refunded but unfortunately it sounds like you're going to need to work for it....

InsideInsurance

Person18 wrote: »

So would I be able to claim my £109 back through S75 from credit card company?

It would be less stress if I had this protection!

You can make a claim, you have to prove your claim though which normally would involve you paying an independent engineer to assess the reports/ the repairs that were done and judge how reasonable it was for the engineer to miss diagnose the problem.

How much did you pay the second plumber to identify the problem? It is more likely this fee you are owed by Homeserve or the card company as if they'd done their job the second call out charge wouldnt have been necessary.

Why are you claiming it from your card company? The merchant is generally in a better position to deal with these things. Your bank will probably want engineer reports as they arent plumbers so have no idea on the reasonableness. Homeserve deal with plumbing all day long and so can most likely assess the claim without you doing to extra expenses/inconvenience.

HomeServe_company_representative

Hi,

I'm sorry to read that we weren't able to fix this leak for you. There are some things that aren't covered through policies or emergency call outs - and sealings do fall under this.

We still want to help as best we can. If you send us across an email (our contact details can be found on our profile) including any details you have about the callout and your address, we'll take a look at this for you.

Thanks,

Stefan
Here to Help Team