World Star Travels.co.uk

1kevfp

World Star Travels.co.uk -London
Has anyone used this company before ? It "appears" that this is a ghost company and it looks like friends of ours have been scammed to the tune of £3.500 for flights to India. They booked by credit card, money has been taken from it, but they have been told by c/c company no claim under sec 75 ?

Any advice grateful

Thanks

Alan_Bowen

It does indeed look extremely dubious. There is no company registered under that name at Companies House, there is a World Star Travel based in Bristol which has been dormant and in April they applied to have the company struck off, and then later that day applied to withdraw the application. I do wonder if some chancer has seen that and thought that is a good name as it is obviously not in use.

The real issue, apart from whether the company exists or not is the fact that they have no ATOL licence which would protect money paid before a ticket is issued, so that is a dead end as well. I do not understand why the bank refused a claim under the CCA as it appears payment has been made and no tickets issued, and for an agent, that is the primary job that you pay them to do. I assume the payment has been collected by a business with a completely different name, but that is not relevant, so long as there is something in writing to show an apparent contract with the business and the airline confirms there is no booking at all, the bank should not refuse a claim

1kevfp

Many thanks Alan, our friends have still not heard from them but I advised him to contact "action fraud"
Apparently his card provider T***o have said their hands are tied by Mastercard rules regarding CCA until 25th of this month

He has the many emails he has sent to World Star travels but nothing formal in "ink"

Thanks again for your time and trouble
K

Alan_Bowen

Clearly not good news with nothing in writing back from the 'company' This is a wake up call to those who think the internet is the be all and end all for buying travel, it isn't. Hopefully in a few days time, they will get their money back from the card issuer but so many of these businesses tell people that their card machine has broken or offer a discount for a bank transfer and if you pay that way, you might as well pour the money down the drain.

nahtan

HI 1kevfp

My name is Nathan, have you tried to speak to the company regarding the money because I also got a refund but it was received after 2 weeks. So I think you need to follow with them regarding the refund.