Ryanair refund still not received from July 2020

Wilks139

Hi all,
Apologies if this isn't the correct way to post to this forum or if this topic has been covered before, but I'm at my whits end with Ryanair and would appreciate any help or advise that anyone can give. 

We had a city break booked via love holidays cancelled back in July 2020, the flights for which were with Ryanair. We have long since had the refund for our hotel from love holidays but they said at the time that we wouldn't get our flight refund back until Ryanair had refunded them. So i was very happy to learn about Ryanairs "customer verification"  process back in August 2020 which would allow Ryanair to confirm me as their "actual customer" and receive a refund from them direct. 

I submitted all of the required documents to Ryanair in August and received confirmation in early September that they had been able to verify me as the customer and that i would be issued a check within 30 working days (or there abouts). As of today (12/02/2021) I have received no such cheque from Ryanair. I have tried every avenue to contact them, via phone, webchat and their social media and the response I get is the same every time - "I can see that you have been verified and that we have actioned for a cheque to be issued, please wait for the cheque to arrive" 

No body will give me a more meaningful update, no body will accept that if they have issued a cheque already that the cheque must have become lost and no body will allow me to speak to their "claims" department as apparently they are completely uncontactable. To the point where even the customer service representatives cant speak to them apparently. The closest I have been able to come to any more information was when i demanded to speak to a manager when calling their customer service number, she advised that i should respond to an email i had received querying the situation. When I said that I had already done that well over 2 month ago, and again around a month ago and not received anything back she once again said i should just wait for a response. To be honest I'm convinced that those emails are going to an address that doesn't receive incoming mail.

Obviously I completely understand that C19 has been a complete disaster for the travel industry, and I'm sympathetic to the crazy amount of work this must have caused but at this point I feel like i'm at a loss. I like most people do not have the time to chase this up with Ryanair once a week but I feel that left up to Ryanair I will never see this refund materialise. You only have to look at their social media posts to see other people talking about similar stories, all the while Ryanair quote successful figures regarding customer refunds! 

Has anyone else had any luck getting a refund via the customer verification process or does anyone have any advise as to what i can do to progress this? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks! 

bagand96

You're not the first to report this situation on this forum.

Unfortunately LoveHolidays should have refunded you.  If you'd booked the hotel and flights together then they'd sold you a package, and as such should have refunded you for your package.  Whether they had yet received the refund from the airline was not your concern.  I'm sure they were delighted to see Ryanair's screenscraper verification process, as it made it very easy for them to (wrongly) divert their customers to the airline.  I understand why you went down that route, Ryanair pitched it as doing the customer a favour and simplifying the process although it looks like that might not be the case.

It's a difficult one because there's no comeback with a payment card against Ryanair as you never paid them.  In theory at least the Package Travel Regulations still stand and LoveHolidays owe you a refund.  But now that will be complicated as you've engaged with the airline directly.  Can't even use Small Claims Court as they're an Irish company.

Wilks139

Thanks, id happily take this back up with love holidays if theres a way to get them to refund me but there policy on that seems to be that they will only refund once they have had the money back from ryanair? 

Honestly the most shocking part of all of this is the complete lack of customer service from Ryanair. You expect such a big company to have proper customer service support but it seems to me that theirs is outsourced and completely unintegrated with their systems. Its like the customer service representatives know as little as I do and have as hard a time finding anything else out! 

Surely they wont get away with this, especially with how many people its impacting. Id happily not chase them again if someone could tell me and guarantee that my refund will be paid in 1 months time for example.  

bagand96

Ryanair have been around long enough and been outspoken enough that I think very few people would expect proper customer service from them.

You're LoveHolidays customer anyway, its them that have failed you.

Flash32

Your contract was with LoveHolidays and it is to them who you must address any claim.  From what you have written you do not appear to have a claim against Ryanair.  As you are now beyond 120 days from when you first knew about the problem it is unlikely that chargeback or a Section 75 claim would work as these are both time-limited.  You could try Moneyclaim Online (was the small claims court).  Be aware that there is a big backlog of cases, but these are not as severely time-bound (normally 5 years), but as LoveHolidays have a UK head office, this option is open to you.  Suggest you start the claim, but then take a screenshot and email this and a polite but brief explanation to their CEO (www.!!!!!! for the CEO's address).  Tell them that unless you hear from them within 10 working days you will submit the claim and start the process.  This often precipitates some action.  The fees are relatively low, but in many cases, the situation resolves before coming to court as this takes valuable time and if they don't contest the claim, you should get a default judgement.

eskbanker

Flash32 said:

As you are now beyond 120 days from when you first knew about the problem it is unlikely that chargeback or a Section 75 claim would work as these are both time-limited.

The 120 day limit only applies to chargeback.  Strictly speaking, section 75 is also time-limited, but only in the sense of the statute of limitations being six years....