Administration Fees for getting a refund from a cancelled flight from an agent?

CKhalvashi

cheapskatevicar said:

MercilessKiller said:

.....

After speaking with MyTrip this morning, they told me they will only process a refund if I agree to pay them an administrative charge....

I would have thought that you would have made the agreement for their administrative charge in the original transaction. Whatever the case, my experience is that AmEx is very good when it comes to retail disputes.
I used an agent for a flight booking in May 2020. As soon as saw the flight was cancelled by BA in April, I requested a chargeback with AmEx as goods not delivered. I read that AmEx gave merchants 7 days (I seem to recall reading) to dispute the chargeback. They didn't.
Too many people wait too long and lose certain protections and rights.

The issue with this is that charging back on a transaction doesn't stop money being owed.

We have modified our customer systems to take an address before the payment screen will load, and have integrated a postal code check into our payment systems, ensuring our terms and conditions now include the £20 fee for chargeback that we have to pay in the event of abuse of the system. That said we don't accept AmEx and haven't had a problem with chargebacks, but need to take necessary steps to protect our business.

I fully support the Chargeback system, however I'm not open to its abuse. You seem to have been far too trigger happy here and I have had a long list of e-mail correspondence over a few weeks to back everything up whenever I've unfortunately had to use it.

[Deleted User]

eskbanker said:

MercilessKiller said:
the last thing I want is the chargeback potentially reversible at "anytime" in the future with no limit

As seen on the recent Ryanair threads, failure by a merchant to dispute a chargeback doesn't prevent them from seeking recovery of the cost at a later date.

The chargeback process itself may complete, i.e. no further action by the card issuer, but that doesn't resolve the underlying contractual dispute as such, so the merchant still has the legal right to pursue the customer independently, until the statute of limitations comes into play.

Anecdotally, I'm sure I've read on here of at least one card issuer reversing a chargeback well after the window within which they were meant to have done so, but can't recall enough detail to search for the thread(s)....

In my case they went bust anyway so won't be trying to recover anything. Quite a few companies went that way.

[Deleted User]

CKhalvashi said:

cheapskatevicar said:

MercilessKiller said:

.....

After speaking with MyTrip this morning, they told me they will only process a refund if I agree to pay them an administrative charge....

I would have thought that you would have made the agreement for their administrative charge in the original transaction. Whatever the case, my experience is that AmEx is very good when it comes to retail disputes.
I used an agent for a flight booking in May 2020. As soon as saw the flight was cancelled by BA in April, I requested a chargeback with AmEx as goods not delivered. I read that AmEx gave merchants 7 days (I seem to recall reading) to dispute the chargeback. They didn't.
Too many people wait too long and lose certain protections and rights.

The issue with this is that charging back on a transaction doesn't stop money being owed.

We have modified our customer systems to take an address before the payment screen will load, and have integrated a postal code check into our payment systems, ensuring our terms and conditions now include the £20 fee for chargeback that we have to pay in the event of abuse of the system. That said we don't accept AmEx and haven't had a problem with chargebacks, but need to take necessary steps to protect our business.

I fully support the Chargeback system, however I'm not open to its abuse. You seem to have been far too trigger happy here and I have had a long list of e-mail correspondence over a few weeks to back everything up whenever I've unfortunately had to use it.

In many cases the refund (less fees) is unreasonably slow to come, and people do a chargeback instead of waiting for months or years.

Hopefully your system is a bit more prompt.

MercilessKiller

Just a quick update on my situation - The dispute was closed back in October a few weeks after submitting and I received the refund. MyTrip emailed me to say they will reply to the chargeback in January (a month after the flight is meant to happen). Meanwhile Amex emailed me early November saying they had until November 22nd to respond. 

Since then - nothing has happened at all. The dispute remains "Closed". The money was credited to me, and MyTrip didn't respond to Amex in the time they gave them. 

I'm not sure if when MyTrip do eventually respond in January AMEX will say "you're way too late, no chance" or will reopen it and remove the credit from my account again - We'll see what happens. My worry is they do this and then MyTrip won't let me claim a refund due to the flight date being in the past - but we'll see what happens! 

CKhalvashi

MercilessKiller said:

Just a quick update on my situation - The dispute was closed back in October a few weeks after submitting and I received the refund. MyTrip emailed me to say they will reply to the chargeback in January (a month after the flight is meant to happen). Meanwhile Amex emailed me early November saying they had until November 22nd to respond. 

Since then - nothing has happened at all. The dispute remains "Closed". The money was credited to me, and MyTrip didn't respond to Amex in the time they gave them. 

I'm not sure if when MyTrip do eventually respond in January AMEX will say "you're way too late, no chance" or will reopen it and remove the credit from my account again - We'll see what happens. My worry is they do this and then MyTrip won't let me claim a refund due to the flight date being in the past - but we'll see what happens! 

I'd have thought their only claim would be partial on the basis that you presumably have correspondence that the flight was cancelled.

I'm currently dealing with my CC issuer (not AmEx) in relation to a SkyUp chargeback where there was a problem with the ticket on a contractual term causing it to be fully refundable and have made it clear that if they attempt to reclaim a charge from me they (the CC issuer) will go straight to court under S75 without further reference to them. Your rights here may be significantly less than this situation.

In relation to this, my card issuer has stated the following:

To adhere to rules set out by Visa we must allow the Merchant 30 days to challenge the refund claimed

If the Merchant provides sufficient evidence to challenge the refund claim, we may have to re-debit your account with the disputed amount

If you haven`t heard from us within the next 90 days, you can assume your claim has been successful and that the refund is secure

MercilessKiller

CKhalvashi said:

MercilessKiller said:

Just a quick update on my situation - The dispute was closed back in October a few weeks after submitting and I received the refund. MyTrip emailed me to say they will reply to the chargeback in January (a month after the flight is meant to happen). Meanwhile Amex emailed me early November saying they had until November 22nd to respond. 

Since then - nothing has happened at all. The dispute remains "Closed". The money was credited to me, and MyTrip didn't respond to Amex in the time they gave them. 

I'm not sure if when MyTrip do eventually respond in January AMEX will say "you're way too late, no chance" or will reopen it and remove the credit from my account again - We'll see what happens. My worry is they do this and then MyTrip won't let me claim a refund due to the flight date being in the past - but we'll see what happens! 

I'd have thought their only claim would be partial on the basis that you presumably have correspondence that the flight was cancelled.

I'm currently dealing with my CC issuer (not AmEx) in relation to a SkyUp chargeback where there was a problem with the ticket on a contractual term causing it to be fully refundable and have made it clear that if they attempt to reclaim a charge from me they (the CC issuer) will go straight to court under S75 without further reference to them. Your rights here may be significantly less than this situation.

In relation to this, my card issuer has stated the following:

To adhere to rules set out by Visa we must allow the Merchant 30 days to challenge the refund claimed

If the Merchant provides sufficient evidence to challenge the refund claim, we may have to re-debit your account with the disputed amount

If you haven`t heard from us within the next 90 days, you can assume your claim has been successful and that the refund is secure

Interesting that they mention the next 90 days. I haven't seen such communication from AmEx but it sounds like if MyTrip are waiting till January to respond, it would be 90 days after the original submission date of the claim, but just under if it's the date the money was paid back to me by AmEx. I wouldn't be surprised if they're waiting till the last possible day to respond though.

CKhalvashi

MercilessKiller said:

CKhalvashi said:

MercilessKiller said:

Just a quick update on my situation - The dispute was closed back in October a few weeks after submitting and I received the refund. MyTrip emailed me to say they will reply to the chargeback in January (a month after the flight is meant to happen). Meanwhile Amex emailed me early November saying they had until November 22nd to respond. 

Since then - nothing has happened at all. The dispute remains "Closed". The money was credited to me, and MyTrip didn't respond to Amex in the time they gave them. 

I'm not sure if when MyTrip do eventually respond in January AMEX will say "you're way too late, no chance" or will reopen it and remove the credit from my account again - We'll see what happens. My worry is they do this and then MyTrip won't let me claim a refund due to the flight date being in the past - but we'll see what happens! 

I'd have thought their only claim would be partial on the basis that you presumably have correspondence that the flight was cancelled.

I'm currently dealing with my CC issuer (not AmEx) in relation to a SkyUp chargeback where there was a problem with the ticket on a contractual term causing it to be fully refundable and have made it clear that if they attempt to reclaim a charge from me they (the CC issuer) will go straight to court under S75 without further reference to them. Your rights here may be significantly less than this situation.

In relation to this, my card issuer has stated the following:

To adhere to rules set out by Visa we must allow the Merchant 30 days to challenge the refund claimed

If the Merchant provides sufficient evidence to challenge the refund claim, we may have to re-debit your account with the disputed amount

If you haven`t heard from us within the next 90 days, you can assume your claim has been successful and that the refund is secure

Interesting that they mention the next 90 days. I haven't seen such communication from AmEx but it sounds like if MyTrip are waiting till January to respond, it would be 90 days after the original submission date of the claim, but just under if it's the date the money was paid back to me by AmEx. I wouldn't be surprised if they're waiting till the last possible day to respond though.

That wouldn't surprise me either.

They're owned by GotoGate who have been a consistently problem company.

If you get a message to say they're disputing the chargeback (in my case this is Capital One on a card that's no longer available for new customers and was sent by e-mail) then ensuring they are aware that it will go to court against them, not MyTrip/GotoGate will hopefully resolve this in your favour.

The worst that's going to happen if it goes to court is a partial win, of which you should get your fees back in any event. If not, it'll hardly be bank breaking.

[Deleted User]

What benefit to them is there from waiting?

Their dispute would simply be their T&C's, so they could submit it any time. Same as all the other disputes they would be filing.

cx6

i guess it is understanding the meaning of the word 'agent'  - it is someone you instruct to do work on your behalf. They usually don't work for free.

Thrugelmir

[Deleted User] said:

What benefit to them is there from waiting?

Their dispute would simply be their T&C's, so they could submit it any time. Same as all the other disputes they would be filing.

Only so many hours in a day with a limited amount of resource to deal with matters.