Paid £456 for X-box - company has disappeared - no X-box and lost money :(

allisonholmes

Hi, I really need some advice about recovering my money via my bank. I bought my son the new X-box for £456 on Gamezoneuk.co.uk. I paid with my John Lewis credit card. The product has not arrived (it was meant to arrive for Christmas) and the outfit seems to have gone out of business, if it ever existed. It is not listed on Companies House. My emails since January have gone unanswered, the website doesn't exist anymore and the phone numbers given are un-recognised. Reviews on trustpilot show other people have had a similar problem with them. John Lewis has written to me stating that they haven't been able to contact the company to confirm whether I am eligible for a refund under section 75 and that I should keep trying to contact them and that they cannot help any further. Is this the end of the matter, or am I covered under banking and/or consumer protection law?

Hoping someone knows the answer!
Thanks

unholyangel

Ask John Lewis for confirmation it's their final response and raise a complaint with the financial ombudsman that JL are in breach of section 75. 

born_again

You should have been doing a chargeback for non receipt. But sadly are now out of time.

Have a look on wayback machine to see if they have the website stored.

TBH. JL should be giving the money back under S75 as there is a clear breech of contract. So it could mean raising a complaint (very easy)

A_Lert

Looks you were the victim of a scam website.

But anyway John Lewis are wrong. This is a cut-and-dried Section 75 claim, unless something "breaks" the S75 protection. Involvement of Paypal or other intermediaries may do that. But John Lewis so far haven't argued along those lines.

The 'retailer' being uncontactable doesn't affect your S75 rights.

neilmcl

Your credit card company are, what is known as equally and severally liable for the breach in contract. This means that the existence or contactibility of the other company is irrelevant to the liability that JL face, they are as liable as if they failed to deliver the goods themselves. As long as you can prove that there's been a breach in contract then a section 75 claim should succeed.

Don't ask JL whether you're "eligible" for a section 75 claim, just put a claim in as is your legal right to do so. If they come back and refuse the claim then you can take it further with the FOS.

pbartlett

1. put in a s75 claim with JL financial services - give them time to respond
2. if no, raise a formal complaint with JL FS
3. if the find against you, or don't reply, in 8 weeks, escalate the claim to FOS

As above, it is  a slam-dunk S75 claim

David713

This is the website that the OP ordered from:
HOME | GameZone UK (archive.org)
and this is what the real GameZone website was back in 2005 
GAMEZONEUK (archive.org)
so it appears that the scammers found a defunct website, hacked it and used it to rip people off.

Caz3121

allisonholmes said:

the outfit seems to have gone out of business, if it ever existed. It is not listed on Companies House. 

I suspect you have been victim to a scam website.... website live 10th December 2020 to catch the Xmas customers, often advertising things that are sold out elsewhere, take their money and shut everything down and disappear. Unlikely they were a legitimate UK company to appear on Companies House. Will likely be back with other fake websites in December to do the same again.
https://www.scam-detector.com/validator/gamezoneuk-co-uk-review/