Disputed Credit Card Transaction

IvyJay

Hi Guys

Last year I paid to attend a property workshop. Payment was made over the phone by giving my credit card details to an agent at the property company. I was sent an acknowledgement of the payment by email but there was no terms and conditions attached. A little while later I decided to cancel as I no longer wanted to attend. I phoned the company but the agent I spoke to didn't know their refund policy and said she would pass my message to a colleague that deals with refunds. It was nearly 2 weeks later before I received a response saying that I was outside the timeframe for a refund. This was now just 2 days before the workshop.

I raised a dispute with my credit card company and was astounded when they eventually replied and had found in the property company's favour stating that even though I wasn't sent a copy of their T&Cs I could have gone online to find them. The letter informed me that I have 6 months to raise a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman so I intend to do so.

I just want to know if their decision is correct. Is it really up to the consumer to go online and search for a company's T&Cs? I had attended a seminar that was run by another property company and their T&Cs were attached to the payment acknowledgement email. What are your views?

This evening I saw a disturbing documentary about the inefficiency of the Financial Ombudsman and it highlighted the fact that they usually find in the banks' favour. I want to pursue this as I find it hard to accept that the onus is on the customer to find the T&Cs but would like to hear your advice on this.

elsien

Personally, I'd always check the terms and conditions before making the payment. It's a bit late to be asking once you've already handed the money over. Was it a cold call or did you phone them?

It's not a disputed transaction, it's a change of mind. Not quite the same thing.

[Deleted User]

What were your reasons for not attending? I suspect that had you attended and found the workshop lacking or not as advertised you would have had good reason to request a refund.
As it stands I think you might have a battle on your hands, sorry.

Auntie-Dolly

Did you try to cancel within 14 days?

IvyJay

If anyone has expertise in this area then I'd appreciate your advice. I have an email where i asked for their terms but they failed to send this to me. They only produced a copy of it to the credit card company when they were contacted about the disputed item.

eskbanker

IvyJay wrote: »

If anyone has expertise in this area then I'd appreciate your advice. I have an email where i asked for their terms but they failed to send this to me. They only produced a copy of it to the credit card company when they were contacted about the disputed item.

IMHO, caveat emptor applies here - the fact that you entered into a contract without establishing the Ts & Cs up front doesn't mean that the supplier is inherently at fault in a subsequent dispute for not having supplied these, so I don't see much mileage in trying to pursue that angle.

Are you planning to answer the questions in the above posts so that people can perhaps offer more relevant guidance rather than getting bogged down in the peripheral issue of if/when/how Ts & Cs were visible?

BorisThomson

Auntie-Dolly wrote: »

Did you try to cancel within 14 days?

There would be no cooling off period as it was for an event on a specified date.

chattychappy

BorisThomson wrote: »

There would be no cooling off period as it was for an event on a specified date.

I remember receiving distance selling stuff when booking courses in the past, including my own law course a few years back.

Perhaps somebody can enlighten us, else I'll do some digging later and come back.

Another thing to check is whether the regs operate to imply terms into a contract (as with other consumer regs) or stand outside of the contract. Since S75 covers breach of contract/misrep, it wouldn't cover the latter.