Secret Escapes

missile

eskbanker: That is not news to me and merely adds strength to the point I was trying to make > in the future we need to be more careful who we book with.
As you will note, in my first post Secret Escapes did not > (3)The retailer must forward those messages, requests or complaints to the organiser without undue delay.

FYI: 
1st payment deposit was made to Secret Escapes  
2nd payment balance was made to Exoticca Travel
To make a successful charge back one must first approach the retailer who accepted the payment. Thus, I requested refunds from both Secret Escapes and Exoticca Travel.

Both companies are now on my "I will not use them again" list.

Time2Go_25

missile said:

eskbanker: That is not news to me and merely adds strength to the point I was trying to make > in the future we need to be more careful who we book with.
As you will note, in my first post Secret Escapes did not > (3)The retailer must forward those messages, requests or complaints to the organiser without undue delay.

FYI: 
1st payment deposit was made to Secret Escapes  
2nd payment balance was made to Exoticca Travel
To make a successful charge back one must first approach the retailer who accepted the payment. Thus, I requested refunds from both Secret Escapes and Exoticca Travel.

Both companies are now on my "I will not use them again" list.

Indeed, I'm amazed how quickly people jumped in to defend companies, when all you were trying to do was get people to be careful who they book things with in the future. I for one am going to be more careful, shall not be using lastminute.com again, even though I got all my money back, it was impossible to contact them and the refund took 5 months.

missile

pdel61 said:

Indeed, I'm amazed how quickly people jumped in to defend companies, when all you were trying to do was get people to be careful who they book things with in the future. I for one am going to be more careful, shall not be using lastminute.com again, even though I got all my money back, it was impossible to contact them and the refund took 5 months.

Many thanks, I often wonder why some members are so aggressive.

Butts

pdel61 said:

missile said:

eskbanker: That is not news to me and merely adds strength to the point I was trying to make > in the future we need to be more careful who we book with.
As you will note, in my first post Secret Escapes did not > (3)The retailer must forward those messages, requests or complaints to the organiser without undue delay.

FYI: 
1st payment deposit was made to Secret Escapes  
2nd payment balance was made to Exoticca Travel
To make a successful charge back one must first approach the retailer who accepted the payment. Thus, I requested refunds from both Secret Escapes and Exoticca Travel.

Both companies are now on my "I will not use them again" list.

Indeed, I'm amazed how quickly people jumped in to defend companies, when all you were trying to do was get people to be careful who they book things with in the future. I for one am going to be more careful, shall not be using lastminute.com again, even though I got all my money back, it was impossible to contact them and the refund took 5 months.

Why did you wait for 5 months with Lastminute.com ?
I got mine back in less than a week doing a chargeback.

eskbanker

missile said:

pdel61 said:

Indeed, I'm amazed how quickly people jumped in to defend companies, when all you were trying to do was get people to be careful who they book things with in the future. I for one am going to be more careful, shall not be using lastminute.com again, even though I got all my money back, it was impossible to contact them and the refund took 5 months.

Many thanks, I often wonder why some members are so aggressive.

I don't know if these accusations are aimed at me but for the record, I'm not defending Secret Escapes here!

Just to reiterate, the point I'm making is that it's important to understand roles and responsibilities under the PTRs, and in particular how it's invalid to characterise SE's role here as prime contractor trying to evade responsibility by offloading it to a subcontractor, as you were clearly seeking to do in earlier posts.

However, as you rightly observe, they are obliged under the regulations to "forward messages, requests or complaints to the organiser", so their apparent failure to do this is legitimate criticism, so it would have been more appropriate for their stance to be:

• Your holiday provider is Exoticca, therefore your contract and even ATOL certificate is with them.
• You have to legally claim your refund with your holiday provider.
• We are sorry but we cannot assist in this matter, other than forwarding your messages to Exoticca

Based on the tone of earlier posts, it seems unlikely that this would have pacified you?

To me it still seems that the point about being careful should be a more general one about care in understanding who is responsible for what under the PTRs and the specific contractual arrangements you agree to enter into, rather than making it all about one particular agent, but we're all entitled to our opinions....

Browntoa

I'm with the above post .

You made the booking but seemingly failed to read and understand the terms and conditions of your booking , which I kindly pointed out , where it's clear that your contract is with another agent ( not them ) .

You "could " deal via secret escapes but you are just introducing a further delay both ways rather than simply dealing with the agent direct . 

Your choice to either be pedantic and take the first path , or simply take the easier path

missile

However well intentioned your comments may have been, they are irrelevant to the subject > 
in the future we need to be more careful who we book with.

This is clearly offensive 

eskbanker said: Based on the tone of earlier posts, it seems unlikely that this would have pacified you?

None of us could have predicted Covid 19. I am confident that I have taken the appropriate steps to recover my loss.
I have no desire to discuss what I could or should not have done. 
I have no desire to debate T&Cs or the legal ramifications of  PTR 2018 & CRA 2015. I have no legal qualifications, do you?

I am not being pedantic as Browntoa suggests. I requested refunds from both Secret Escapes and Exoticca Travel as instructed by my credit card provider. I believe they have more experience and are better qualified than you.  

eskbanker

missile said:

However well intentioned your comments may have been, they are irrelevant to the subject > 
in the future we need to be more careful who we book with.

[...]

I have no desire to discuss what I could or should not have done. 
I have no desire to debate T&Cs or the legal ramifications of  PTR 2018 & CRA 2015. I have no legal qualifications, do you?

Just because you start the thread doesn't mean that it's up to you to unilaterally decide what is or isn't on topic thereafter!  It's perfectly legitimate for posters to try to explain why your antipathy towards Secret Escapes isn't as justified as you seemingly believed it to be when misunderstanding their obligations - you can choose to put your head in the sand if you like but that doesn't invalidate the comments of those seeing the bigger picture....

missile said:

This is clearly offensive 

eskbanker said: Based on the tone of earlier posts, it seems unlikely that this would have pacified you?

Hardly, that could only be construed as offensive by someone with a particularly thin skin!  I stand by the point I was making, i.e. that in the light of the nature of your comments, it seems clear that you'd still have been unhappy even if you had understood SE's actual obligations, or are you saying that you would have been happy with my suggested revised wording?

missile said:

I am not being pedantic as Browntoa suggests. I requested refunds from both Secret Escapes and Exoticca Travel as instructed by my credit card provider. I believe they have more experience and are better qualified than you.  

Nobody is criticising you for jumping through the hoops expected by your card provider, in order to get your money back, but remember that they're simply following the defined chargeback process, under which the customer first has to attempt to resolve matters with the merchant(s). In other words, the card provider isn't claiming expertise in contract law or making any assertions about which merchants (if any) are legally responsible for the claim, they're just asking that you fulfil your obligations before they take any chargeback action, as per https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/visa-mastercard-chargeback/:

You can only start a chargeback claim when you've exhausted all other avenues with the retailer.

Time2Go_25

Butts said:

pdel61 said:

missile said:

eskbanker: That is not news to me and merely adds strength to the point I was trying to make > in the future we need to be more careful who we book with.
As you will note, in my first post Secret Escapes did not > (3)The retailer must forward those messages, requests or complaints to the organiser without undue delay.

FYI: 
1st payment deposit was made to Secret Escapes  
2nd payment balance was made to Exoticca Travel
To make a successful charge back one must first approach the retailer who accepted the payment. Thus, I requested refunds from both Secret Escapes and Exoticca Travel.

Both companies are now on my "I will not use them again" list.

Indeed, I'm amazed how quickly people jumped in to defend companies, when all you were trying to do was get people to be careful who they book things with in the future. I for one am going to be more careful, shall not be using lastminute.com again, even though I got all my money back, it was impossible to contact them and the refund took 5 months.

Why did you wait for 5 months with Lastminute.com ?
I got mine back in less than a week doing a chargeback.

You have asked me many times why I didn't go straight for a chargeback. That's really of no relevance to this, but there were reasons which I have no plans on discussing here. 

missile

eskbanker said:

Hardly, that could only be construed as offensive by someone with a particularly thin skin!  I stand by the point I was making, i.e. that in the light of the nature of your comments, it seems clear that you'd still have been unhappy even if you had understood SE's actual obligations, or are you saying that you would have been happy with my suggested revised wording?

eskbanker said: Based on the tone of earlier posts, it seems unlikely that this would have pacified you?
eskbanker said: you can choose to put your head in the sand

Your "tone" is clearly offensive. Get off your high horse and stop talking down to others.