Chargeback Query

kuepper

I was promised a refund for a cancelled Olympic Holidays trip 'up to 12 weeks from departure date' which was 3 weeks ago. Their website is now quoting 'up to 16 weeks' for refunds (ie October basically after the summer has gone) but that's got me worried 16 could become 20 weeks etc. It looks more likely that I'd be able to have a UK/Ireland summer holiday than a foreign one and I'd like my refund back to fund it. As it seemed I have nothing to lose I was thinking of making a Chargeback claim and I only have 4 days left to do it (up to expiry of 120 days). but that payment 116 days ago was my balance not the whole cost, the deposit was paid over 12 months ago. Would my deposit be covered by Chargeback? (if not it seems pointless me bothering)

Life__Goes__On

120 days start from either purchase date, or the date the service was due to start,  so in your case you have 120 days from when your holiday was due to commence. 

kuepper

I've just noticed in the MSE Chargeback info it says circumstances in which it can be used includesr 'non-delivery' - which I assume covers my circumstance - but says" the goods you've paid for were not received as promised and the company refuses to refund you". The company hasn't refused to refund me - it says it has started the refund process but I'm just worried about the timescale - so does Chargeback still apply?

Life__Goes__On

kuepper said:

I've just noticed in the MSE Chargeback info it says circumstances in which it can be used includesr 'non-delivery' - which I assume covers my circumstance - but says" the goods you've paid for were not received as promised and the company refuses to refund you". The company hasn't refused to refund me - it says it has started the refund process but I'm just worried about the timescale - so does Chargeback still apply?

If you bought a package holiday they should have refunded within 14 days, anything outside the legal time-frame could be seen as a refusal of a refund. Plenty of people of raised Chargebacks,  but this has a knock on effect that some banks are taking a long while to process them.

ComicGeek

In my case, I'm on day 87 with Virgin Holidays and they have said they will look to refund within 120 days. However the cancellation date and my travel date were only a couple of day's apart. I don't trust them so have started a chargeback with my CC company.

I heard from some people yesterday that the chargeback process has provided an excuse for VH to delay refunds - my CC company won't even look at my application for 10+ weeks so hopefully will only kick in if VH fail to meet their latest promise. There isn't any maximum timescale for the CC company resolving the chargeback, so definitely no guarantee that this would be quicker.

16 weeks would push you very close to the 120 day limit, so you need to put some calendar reminders in so you don't forget.

kuepper

I contacted bank(co-op)/visa this morning and was told the money will be refunded to my account by close of business tomorrow! Very impressed. Was told the company have 45 days to dispute it in which case the bank/visa will contact me.again. Thanks Life_Goes_On for pointing me that way. I thought Chargeback might muddy the waters but it's actually cleared them!

Life__Goes__On

kuepper said:

I contacted bank(co-op)/visa this morning and was told the money will be refunded to my account by close of business tomorrow! Very impressed. Was told the company have 45 days to dispute it in which case the bank/visa will contact me.again. Thanks Life_Goes_On for pointing me that way. I thought Chargeback might muddy the waters but it's actually cleared them!

  Pleasure Glad your bank is one of the good ones,  terrible how some are quoting 10 weeks like  CG, yet some can do it in a day.

kuepper

Life__Goes__On said:

kuepper said:

I contacted bank(co-op)/visa this morning and was told the money will be refunded to my account by close of business tomorrow! Very impressed. Was told the company have 45 days to dispute it in which case the bank/visa will contact me.again. Thanks Life_Goes_On for pointing me that way. I thought Chargeback might muddy the waters but it's actually cleared them!

  Pleasure Glad your bank is one of the good ones,  terrible how some are quoting 10 weeks like  CG, yet some can do it in a day.

I was surprised it was so easy to do over the phone, I just needed to provide my transaction dates, destination, date of departure, date refund was offered, name of company and holiday reference. I wasn't expecting the rapid payment and even questioned whether that was right and was told 'yes we reimburse first and debit later if the company successfully dispute the matter'. I'll post update

macman

Has anyone done a chargeback via Santander, and if so, how long did it take? I raised one against BA about ten days ago, all the details were taken over the phone, but I was told they would send me a summary form for signature, and to add any relevant paperwork, booking emails etc. That arrived 3 days later, returned same day. I was expecting it to take 14-28 days at least, given current volumes, so quite surprised to see that some people were able to complete the process over the phone and obtain a refund in just a few days?

kuepper

Unbelievably it's already been refunded into my credit card account! What service from Smile(Co-op) Bank/Visa. I never imagined it could happen the same day, I'm over the moon.

ComicGeek

That's great news!

And just to name and shame my own cc company, it's John Lewis. Their chargeback team are uncontactable even by their own customer service team now, as I think they had so many people phoning up to chase progress.

It will be interesting to see which companies come out well at the end of this in terms of customer service as a lot of the older companies who have traditionally prided themselves on customer service have really failed.