Sharp Practice

cheatingbastards

We were due to spend from 20 to 24 April, booked with Lastminute.com. We paid £149 deposit. Then coronavirus resulted in Murcia being in total lockdown and Ryanair cancelling flights there. We were resigned to lose our deposit. However on 23rd March £449.20 was deducted from the credit card we had paid the deposit with, taken by Lastminute.com. We had no intention of paying, it was up to us to send them the money, they had no authorisation to apply for this amount and our Building Society, Nationwide did not even query it. I believe this to be a case of fraud. I hope others out there keep vigilant and make sure they don't come a cropper.   

eskbanker

Had lastminute.com actually cancelled your trip or were you just working on the basis that it was unlikely to go ahead and believing that the booking was effectively void?

If the former then yes, they have a case to answer, but either way you should be able to get your money back if it doesn't go ahead.

On the authorisation point, check the Ts & Cs of the booking to ascertain if they have any rights to take balance payment from the card used for the deposit....

[Deleted User]

It seems unlikely that this is either sharp practice or fraud, but customer misunderstanding.
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From their website - 

Looking a bit further ahead your holiday? Why not split the cost with our easy deposit scheme. 

Available for bookings made more than 40 days before departure. Just 25% of the value is required upfront to secure your holiday. 

The rest is due 30 days before departure.

We’ll automatically charge the remaining amount to the same card.

It looks like they did exactly as promised.

bengal-stripe

When Lastminute took the balance on March 23rd the lockdown was supposed to end on April 5th. Although there has been an extension two days ago, the new date goes only up to April 11th. At the moment there is no lockdown for April 20-24. It is extremely likely there will be further extensions and April 20-24 will fall into lockdown. Then you can demand a refund of all your payment as you won't be able to attend. Right at the moment you are able to attend (in theory) as there is no lockdown (as yet) on your chosen dates.