Atlas Car hire Nationwide credit card charge back rejected

Keith91

An update on the previous Atlas Choice thread which is now closed.

In June 2016 I paid Atlas Choice for car hire for our October holiday in Malta. In October we handed over the pre paid voucher to the car company at the airport in Malta and gave our credit card to them for pre authorisation in case of any damage or traffic violations as per the rental agreement. We returned the car a week later on 1 November in good order and with no violations.

On 27 December, with no prior warning, Aquarius placed a charge on my credit card for the car hire and I received a letter from them on 4 January telling me that they had done this because Atlas had gone into administration and that I had to get my bank to recover the money paid by debit card to Atlas back in June.

On 5 January, following the advice on this forum, I contacted Nationwide, my credit card company to dispute the charge, providing all the details of the transactions.

They investigated the charge and on 17 February contacted me to say:

• Atlas have advised Aquarius to charge the car rental to the customer credit card and for the customer to then dispute the original payment to Atlas Choice through their bank
• If Nationwide disputed the charge then Visa would reject this due to Nationwide not following their ‘rules and regulations’
• Visa rules and regulations cannot be shared with customers as this is confidential
• There is no time limit to how long a merchant can place a charge on a customer credit card

I have rejected this response asking it to be escalated to Head Office with a request that I be provided with:

- details of the specific Visa rules and regulations they are referring to, as I was told by the Nationwide representative that these are confidential and cannot be shared with customers
- reasons why they allowed a transaction 8 weeks after the pre authorisation (they did not contact me to alert me to this transaction) without seeking my further authorisation

In the meantime I have contacted my bank to attempt recovery of the original payment made to Atlas back in June.

Has anyone else experienced problems claiming a charge back? Any thoughts on the likelihood of success on recovery from the bank?

Aylesbury_Duck

I had the same problem. Halifax were unhelpful and didn't want to pursue a chargeback for the amount belatedly taken from my card in December. Tesco on the other hand were very helpful and have done a chargeback on the original sum paid to Atlas in June on my Tesco card. I understand that Atlas's bank has 45 days to dispute it so I'm waiting to see if it's disputed.

I will still pursue a complaint with Halifax, not to get a double refund, but to question why they are not concerned that a merchant was able to retain my card details for five months and make an unauthorised charge without once notifying me before or afterwards. Unlike your situation, the car company made no attempt to get in touch, despite having my postal address, phone numbers and email address.