Chargeback on Holiday

roxy48

I saw a similar post with similar title about TUI.

I made a claim with a different holiday company last year after they cancelled and after huge personal effort got full refund end June 2020.  I told them I had started chargeback with my credit card (CC), which is why perhaps they paid me.  We received the deposit back about the same time.  I immediately told CC that I had been refunded in full and they said not to worry, they would re-debit the deposit in August if they needed to.  So nothing happens until beginning of October 2021 when the holiday company give me 7 days notice to return the deposit to their bank account.  Very heavy handed I thought, they didn't even prove I owed them anything and after swapping emails they threaten legal action within 7 days.

I'm not sure my debt is to them.  Our contact finished when they cancelled the holiday and refunded me.

Surely my debt is to CC as I had a separate contract with them which allowed cashback.  If I have a debt is it not to CC, as they could still technically take it back whenever they want to without asking.

The holiday company has not proved the debt to me in this exchange, has given me no 'proof' i have even been refunded twice, (just telling me they have been charged twice, and CC has so far refused to re-debit me) .

When I think of all the hoops we had to jump through for anything, all the terms & conditions we had to assemble to get anything back last year, I would have hoped to at least make them work for their money.

Any ideas anyone, aside from saying I must have enjoyed my 0.01% interest for 15 months?

Roxy48

Sandtree

Chargeback is a clawback from the merchant account not money from the credit card company's pocket

Thrugelmir

roxy48 said:

I would have hoped to at least make them work for their money.

Seems you are by wasting their valuable time.  Hopefully you have no plans to use them again in the future. 

roxy48

Thanks for that.

But who is my contract with for that clawback?  I was assuming I have a contract with the card company that allows clawback from the merchant in certain circumstances and the merchant has a contract with the card company that allows clawback if credit card used for payment.

If it wasn't this triangle arrangement why doesn't the merchant simply arrange for my payment to be re-debited via the card company??   If I pay the merchant how do I know the card company won't do this later.

roxy48

Thrugelmir said:

roxy48 said:

I would have hoped to at least make them work for their money.

Seems you are by wasting their valuable time.  Hopefully you have no plans to use them again in the future. 

Absolutely not.  I thought their customer service at the time was appalling.  Their admin isn't very good either as it has taken 14 months for them to pick this up

sheramber

The merchant only has 45 days to dispute the chargeback. As it is way over that they cannot get it back so come to you.

Sandtree

roxy48 said:

Thanks for that.

But who is my contract with for that clawback?  I was assuming I have a contract with the card company that allows clawback from the merchant in certain circumstances and the merchant has a contract with the card company that allows clawback if credit card used for payment.

If it wasn't this triangle arrangement why doesn't the merchant simply arrange for my payment to be re-debited via the card company??   If I pay the merchant how do I know the card company won't do this later.

Its the original contract with the merchant... hence you will find another thread on here for someone that did a chargeback on a sofa (I think) and the merchant is now pursuing them. You will also have a contract with your credit card provider but that is irrelevant to this discussion. Cancelling a contract does make it such that the contract never existed, thats rescinding a contract, and many provisions survive past cancellation... eg they cannot now go and sell your card details etc to the highest bidder just because the contract, and therefore its privacy clauses, was cancelled.

The merchant is in the worst space contractually... all merchant accounts enable the bank to clawback money from their account but the card rules mean they must have your explicit permission to redebit the payment... were they to do it without your permission it would be fraud unless you had signed up to a Continuous Payment Authority which you clearly wouldnt be doing with a one off service.

Your bank wont be putting the money back but if you are concerned they do then instruct them not to in which case you'd have strong grounds for a complaint if they subsequently did (this is assuming the 45 days since the chargeback has been raised has lapsed)


Be aware that the courts dont believe that two wrongs make a right and statutory interest that the courts would award the company if they had to issue to recover their money is a lot more than your 0.01%

roxy48

sheramber said:

The merchant only has 45 days to dispute the chargeback. As it is way over that they cannot get it back so come to you.

That's an interesting piece of information - at least something to build on.

The key question is do I owe the merchant, or is my debt to the credit card company.........?

sparklep0ny

roxy48 said:

sheramber said:

The merchant only has 45 days to dispute the chargeback. As it is way over that they cannot get it back so come to you.

That's an interesting piece of information - at least something to build on.

The key question is do I owe the merchant, or is my debt to the credit card company.........?

You owe the merchant.  They're the ones who are out in this transaction.  The bank just lifted the deposit out of the merchants account, they didn't pay for it out of their own pocket.

roxy48

sparklep0ny said:

roxy48 said:

sheramber said:

The merchant only has 45 days to dispute the chargeback. As it is way over that they cannot get it back so come to you.

That's an interesting piece of information - at least something to build on.

The key question is do I owe the merchant, or is my debt to the credit card company.........?

You owe the merchant.  They're the ones who are out in this transaction.  The bank just lifted the deposit out of the merchants account, they didn't pay for it out of their own pocket.

Ok, I get some of that.  I would like to see their terms and conditions that cover this though and they have given me no details at all about any of the transactions.  Perhaps there are also some terms and conditions attached to chargeback that are relevant and I could ask for.  At the current time I am not even sure the credit card company did not re-debit; it's over a year and I didn't see anything on the statements which I no longer have.  I thank you for your time.

roxy48

Sandtree said:

Be aware that the courts don't believe that two wrongs make a right and statutory interest that the courts would award the company if they had to issue to recover their money is a lot more than your 0.01%

So they threaten me with courts and court costs, when basically they broke the contract, I had to jump through hoops, repeated emails, phone calls,  searches on forums, reading through endless terms & conditions and having to supply all that to both the holiday company and the credit card company.  Then wallop, 15 months later they ask for it back.