Section &75 protection

Swanseanelson

Anyone had a problem with this..
A booking of an apartment was made via Booking.com and paid for with a credit card.
The property description implied it was a quiet area ( i.e. no parties etc. quite hours between 10pm and 8am.
It was not in a quiet area but above a night club and so rendered the accommodation in our view not fit for purpose and misrepresented.
Complained to booking.com who offered £25.00 but no liability
Made a S.&% claim to credit card provider but they also abnegated responsibility in essence saying that Booking.com do not guarantee all info on their site is accurate. In addition the services provided are from the trip provider and not Booking.com This means that Booking.com is only a facilitator of the booking and not the actual service provider; meaning the dcs- the Debtor –Creditor-Supplier chain isn’t intact ( which it has to be for a S75 claim) as the trip Provider creates a 4th party to the chain.

Therefore it must follow that ANYONE booking accommodation with Booking.com( or any other similar business) via their UK credit card would not be able to make a successful S. 75 claim if they had any problems?!
Makes the offer of protection rather hollow as not many people would be aware of the DCS chain!?


Or have I got this completely wrong?

Nasqueron

Many (most?) people are not even aware of S75, let alone the rules.


However, S75 is the law and requires the direct DS relationship to be established



Next time why not use trip advisor or similar sites to check the reviews?

Chino

Why don't you make your claim directly with the accommodation provider?

If you felt that you had reason to claim against your card issuer under s75 then this same reason would apply with a direct claim against the accommodation provider. Or is the accommodation provider no longer trading?

eco_warrior

If you take the whole DCS chain away and just look at the claim/situation, you'd probably wouldn't be successful anyway.


Difficult (perhaps not possible) to substantiate these claims in the vast majority of instances.


99.99% of the time if a customer complains about a holiday to their card issuer they get nowhere. The DCS chain is just 1 of the hurdles.

eskbanker

Swanseanelson wrote: »

Therefore it must follow that ANYONE booking accommodation with Booking.com( or any other similar business) via their UK credit card would not be able to make a successful S. 75 claim if they had any problems?!
Makes the offer of protection rather hollow as not many people would be aware of the DCS chain!?

Or have I got this completely wrong?

The DCS chain is covered extensively in most articles about s75, although it's phrased in the MSE house style at https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/section75-protect-your-purchases/#exceptions:

Goods/services bought via intermediaries – travel agent, group-buying sites, PayPal etc

You're unlikely to be covered when payments are made to a company that isn't the one providing you with the product or service. In these cases, the credit card company usually says it didn't have a direct relationship with the supplier, so isn't equally liable. [etc]

Terry_Towelling

Booking.com has come up before in the context of S75.

My understanding of the Booking.com website is that all information is provided (and added) to the site by the supplier - not by Booking.com. I also understand that the T&Cs of the site state that, when you make a booking, you are entering into a contract with the supplier.

The final piece of the jigsaw now is to understand who you have paid with your credit card transaction - did you pay Booking.com or the supplier?

If you paid Booking.com then establishing an unbroken D-C-S chain is probably not going to succeed. If you paid the supplier, then all of the T&Cs provided by Booking.com would appear to indicate that you entered into a contact with said supplier and paid said supplier. All Booking.com have done is act as a shop window to allow the supplier to advertise their services.

That would seem to suggest (just my opinion as a rank amateur) that the D-C-S chain is unbroken and you could involve your bank in a S75 claim if you can prove breach of contract or misrepresentation by the supplier. You have said the property description 'implied' it was in a quiet area. I suspect it would have to be more than just an implication for you to try and push your case further forward - and you'd probably need evidence of the 'implication' and be able to show precisely how it misrepresented the truth.

If it were me, that's the line I'd take with both the supplier and my card company.