STA Travel deposit - paid by Visa & Nationwide refuse refund claim

ClaretAnt

A little over two months after putting in a Visa dispute claim to Nationwide they have turned it down with the vague (and apparently standard wording) "Having looked at the information provided we're sorry to say that, as it stands, there is no basis for us to raise a claim against the merchant."

Brief scenario is that we booked a trip through STA Travel with G Adventures (due to go to Peru in July). We paid a £600 deposit and when the Covid situation arose we decided to accept a voucher for flights (booked completely separately with BA - no STA involvement, so STA booking not covered by package regs.) and to defer the trip, without paying the balance (we liaised with STA Travel and were told that G Adventures state that they have a 'lifetime' deposit so the plan was just to wait and see when we would be able to rebook once the Covid situation was over). However, after STA went into administration it became clear that they had not passed our deposit on to G Adventures.

The letter from Nationwide today states "However, well happily look at your claim again if you're able to provide the following information : Evidence the original booking for July 2020 was cancelled before the administration notice."

I really don't know what the relevance of this is. STA went into administration in August, so of course the July booking was 'cancelled' before then! (Although I suppose there could be some discussion about whether it was 'cancelled' or 'deferred' or whatever. But all of that seems to me irrelevant). The bottom line as I see it is that we paid STA a deposit of £600 as part payment for a tour with G Adventures. G Adventures did not see any of that money, therefore STA did not provide what we paid them for, and therfore Nationwide as the credit card issuer are liable.

Am I wrong? A bit of Googling around the issue suggests there may be some muddy legal waters around S75 and travel agents, but even if that were the case, as we are not claiming anything beyond the £600 deposit (wholly paid by credit card) I now think that a charge back should be possible regardless of S75. Interestingly, Nationwide's Visa dispute claim form makes no reference to either S75 or charge back and I have only recently become aware that charge back can be done with credit cards as well as debit cards. 

Any thoughts on how best to proceed with this? 

Westin

From your credit card statement, who received the funds? STA or G-Adventure?

Do you have any trip confirmation paperwork from G-Adventure, particularly following the decision to defer the trip and hold the deposit against a new future trip?

Have you spoken to G-Adventure to try to establish the situation with your booking and if they are holding a credit for you?  

ClaretAnt

STA received the funds from the credit card payment. 

We have confirmation from GAdventures that they are holding the booking for the tour next year, but they contacted us following STA going into administration saying “ Unfortunately, G Adventures have not received your funds from STA, therefore you will receive a full refund of all amounts paid from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). A claim form will need to be submitted, which will be available here one released by ATOL: https://www.packpeaceofmind.co.uk ”

After looking into the paperwork from STA it was clear that we were not ATOL protected (flights booked separately). We received a communication from the administrators for STA with a table outlining the procedures for different scenarios. For our situation (Hotels, Tours and other non-flight booked items) it said to contact ABTA and gave a link to their STA specific page (https://www.abta.com/news/sta-travel-limited-ceases-trading-advice-customers) which states "If you paid STA Travel Limited directly using a debit or credit card you will need to submit your claim for a refund to your card issuer. To assist you in making your claim you will need to download a letter below. " I sent that letter to Nationwide along with their Visa claim form and the email from G Adventures mentioned above stating they had not received our funds from STA  (indeed we later had a Statement of Affairs from the administrator with a list showing that G Adventures were by far their largest creditor, being owed over £1.5m -ouch!) 

CKhalvashi

The above taken into account, you may be able to claim from the ABTA scheme instead of ATOL.

You are correct that ATOL does not apply here, however as far as I'm aware, ABTA operate a separate scheme for non-ATOL protected products.

Also, STA will have been under an obligation to hold an insolvency protection insurance somewhere (I have an interest in a company that doesn't offer flights but does offer packages and can confirm that an insurance policy is mandatory in the country that the company is registered in for x% of turnover), so it may be worth calling the Insolvency people to find out where this was held, as you/they may need to make a claim on this policy.

Hope this helps.

Alan_Bowen

If G Adventures had issued a confirmation invoice to you prior to STA failing, then you have a valid contract with them and they are the ones to stand the loss, not you. The fact they are owed so much money suggests they allowed STA credit which will prevent them from making a claim from ABTA but ABTA will also say you have suffered no loss as G Adventures will have to legally honour the £600 deposit that you paid to their agent. On that basis, I can see why the card issuer has said no.
If no invoice was received, then there is no contract with G Ad. and you do have a valid claim against ABTA