Money refunded by airline but not returned by travel agent

Shaunyc

Hi, 
I had a holiday booked for bali earlier this year through gotogate flying with Singapore Airlines beginning of June.. 
I am getting really frustrated with the way gotogate have handled the situation..... 
Issue 1/
my gf was flying out a week before so recived the covid cancellation before me and option provided via email for refund or flight credits(she still hasn't recived refund BTW) 
So I recived my email a week later but the option for refund wasn't in the email just flight credits... So had to ring them, after a long chat about my flight being cancelled they said they would procces the refund application... Minus admin of £30 because I rang(which I wouldn't have had to if I recived the same email as my gf) 
Issue 2/
After 3 months of emails saying "we are still awaiting a response from the airline we will keep trying 1st and 15th of every month" 
I decided to contact Singapore Airlines myself for an update(with the assumption of what I was about to find out).....
Singapore Airlines had processed and refunded my application a month after they recived it... So gotogate have failed to return my refund for 2 months! 
Issue 3/
I rang gotogate to confrunt them on the situation only to be told "let me just put you on hold while I check your details" 6 minutes later the phone goes dead...... 

Now... I am ready to give gotogate both barrels tomorrow and feel I have a right to compensation for all my wasted phone calls.... And even some sort of interest I've lost not having my money returned to my account.... For 2 months!

But I am feeling I would like to esecerlate this further.... 
I can only imagine how many other people they have done this too.. Making a tidy sum from 1000's of peoples redunds!

Any advice where this can lead? Or where I can start looking.... I see the resolver thing but I think they deserve sueing to some extent, or prison... some sort of punishment for practically stealing peoples money....

Sorry for the long rant but I do feel something needs to be done about this

Thanks
Shaun

Caz3121

Many poor third parties like gotogate work with very few after sales staff, they are set up to sell tickets online so are not setup to handle 1,000s of refunds
The £30 I don't think is related to the phone call, it is for the work they do to process the refund. 
This thread is many years old (their poor service is not covid-specific) and the most recent posts also mention the £30 fee for refund (which is much less than the majority of third parties charge)
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k7753309-GOTOGATE_anyone_had_a_GOOD_experience-Air_Travel.html
Have you spoken to your card company?

Shaunyc

Thank you for your response...
Although I doubt there 'poor' after pocketing people's money....
They are quick to take the money,
And I wasnt waiting an extremely long time for an answer on the phone (maybe 10 mins) so must be a decent amount of staff at work to handle claims...
After the call they hung up on I rung them back and at the time singapore had only confirmed claim had been processed.... To which gotogate response was "May of been processed but we haven't had a refund this end"
And gave me a refund claim code to ring Singapore back with..... Which is when the refund was confirmed(without even giving them the code)
So I am pretty sure gotogate are pulling a fast one

Westin

As a direct customer of Singapore Airlines I was chasing and waiting a long time for my refund as well. SQ may well have contributed to the refund delay and not be entirely blameless.

I doubt you will have any joy in claiming extra compensation from Go to Gate, but I suspect your refund will come to you in due course, probably after more frustration.

Was there a reason why you selected this Swedish based online ticket seller for your purchase? I’m guessing price and cheap. Unfortunately cheap service then follows when things go wrong as these online overseas based sellers who don’t have the margin to invest in providing customer service or even people to answer the phone and deal with issues.  Go to Gate is owned by a private equity business who I expect are more interested in return on investment than customer service or retention.  They are also linked to the dubious Greek based e-travel and part of the Etraveli Group.  Sometimes it is best to buy direct from the airline or from a reputable U.K. based travel company. But I guess this is becoming apparent...

Butts

Westin said:

As a direct customer of Singapore Airlines I was chasing and waiting a long time for my refund as well. SQ may well have contributed to the refund delay and not be entirely blameless.

I doubt you will have any joy in claiming extra compensation from Go to Gate, but I suspect your refund will come to you in due course, probably after more frustration.

Was there a reason why you selected this Swedish based online ticket seller for your purchase? I’m guessing price and cheap. Unfortunately cheap service then follows when things go wrong as these online overseas based sellers who don’t have the margin to invest in providing customer service or even people to answer the phone and deal with issues.  Go to Gate is owned by a private equity business who I expect are more interested in return on investment than customer service or retention.  They are also linked to the dubious Greek based e-travel and part of the Etraveli Group.  Sometimes it is best to buy direct from the airline or from a reputable U.K. based travel company. But I guess this is becoming apparent...

Why didn't you hit Singapore Airlines with a chargeback after 7 days without a refund as you are legally entitled to do ?

If Go to Gate don't play ball don't hang around hit them with a chargeback or Section 75.

The longer you allow any of these outlets to prevaricate the more they like it !!

Shaunyc

Thank you for your response.. 
Tbf it seems singapore had refunded the money within a month which sounds acceptable..... My frustration is with gotogate which isn't playing fair for the many people who must be in my situation, weather they know it or not..
I only chose gotogate as that's who my gf was flying with and was nessecery to be in the same return flight home.. 

CKhalvashi

Shaunyc said:

Thank you for your response.. 
Tbf it seems singapore had refunded the money within a month which sounds acceptable..... My frustration is with gotogate which isn't playing fair for the many people who must be in my situation, weather they know it or not..
I only chose gotogate as that's who my gf was flying with and was nessecery to be in the same return flight home.. 

Gotogate aren't an airline though, so she wasn't flying with them. She may have booked with them, but that's her choice.

If one thing has been learned this year, it's always to book with the airline directly. That's made a lot of things easier (although I have no particular experience with Singapore Airlines).

Gotogate showed about £6 cheaper for return flights (with LOT) on a ticket I've recently purchased, £6 isn't worth losing everything due to a dodgy agent IMO, and it's much easier to deal with the airline directly than to Gotogate, who you already admitted have (illegally IMO, definitely immorally) slapped with with a £30 fee.

mattyprice4004

You booked with a cheap agent to save a few quid, and now you’re seeing why. 

I really, really hope everyone remembers just how awful they’ve all been, and book directly with the airline next time. 

[Deleted User]

If you want to sue GTG go ahead.   It always takes someone to make the first steps.   Not totally convinced of how successful you would be though have to say.   Two months waiting on a refund isn't actually that long if you read other posts.  I suspect they are not raking it in, rather robbing Peter to pay Paul?   No help to you of course but as you are finding out, majority these small T.A's are probably going to fold anyway.    Have you tried your bank for a chargeback b.t.w.   Even that seems to have varying successes with some banks feeling a promise to repay (some time in future) is good enough!   Some reclaimed money very quickly in the beginning but I think even they are now dragging their feet, obviously due to the massive demand.   Good luck.

GrumpyDil

Who did you pay? As Singapore have refunded GTG then I assume you paid them and then they paid Singapore. If that's correct then yes I'd start a chargeback or s75 claim again GTG depending if you paid by credit or debit card.

mattyprice4004

Tedber said:

If you want to sue GTG go ahead.   It always takes someone to make the first steps.   Not totally convinced of how successful you would be though have to say.   Two months waiting on a refund isn't actually that long if you read other posts.  I suspect they are not raking it in, rather robbing Peter to pay Paul?   No help to you of course but as you are finding out, majority these small T.A's are probably going to fold anyway.    Have you tried your bank for a chargeback b.t.w.   Even that seems to have varying successes with some banks feeling a promise to repay (some time in future) is good enough!   Some reclaimed money very quickly in the beginning but I think even they are now dragging their feet, obviously due to the massive demand.   Good luck.

The problem with litigation will be the huge backlog of cases - it’d likely take a lot longer than usual to even get anywhere near a judge.