Sykes Cottages - £20 Deposit

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

soolin said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

wesleyad said:

Why don't they say "free now pay later"

Don't know if they've changed it recently but it now seems to be called "Book now pay later" 

It's clearly designed to encourage you to book a holiday as £20 is nothing and worry about the rest later.

Might be worth those affected making a complaint to the ASA

It still says that- ' book now pay later' and with a very large clickable 'Terms and conditions ' button immediately below the statement. Click on that and you get the full t and Cs

https://www.sykescottages.co.uk/book-now-pay-later-terms.html

Point 4 on those states 'You will also be responsible (even if you cancel your Booking) for paying the difference between the initial deposit that you would have paid if we had not made The Offer available to you and the Deposit (we call this the "Deposit Balance"). You will be quoted what your initial deposit would have been during the Booking process.'

so they are very upfront that any cancellation incurs the full deposit that would have been due if they hadn't offered th elow cost deposit.

I cannot see that being misleading at all?

What they have now seems fine (bar the question of how much they are allowed to take for the cancellation) but if they previously advertised the £20 offer specifically as deposit rather than pay later I believe it could be classed as misleading to the average consumer to then state upon cancellation that the deposit wasn't actually £20 but was x amount and the difference is due. 

This page is making reference to a £20 deposit rather than pay later:

https://www.sykescottages.co.uk/low-deposit-policies.html

Would really need to see either the offer the purchasers saw or their terms given upon completing the booking to know how it was advertised or sold to them. 

FiestaRed

Just as an update, I sent in a complaint to the ASA and, as expected, they came back with a negative.

What they did add however was the following: "We will keep a record of it on our system and take your views into account if we receive more complaints about this or similar issues".

So if any others on here still feel a bit annoyed about the Sykes £20 deposit scheme, it wouldn't hurt to drop the ASA a line.