Tui money card

Hannahphoenix

Hello
i put some money on a tui card for a trip abroad

i didn’t spend all of it

i was then involved in not one but two serious accidents leaving me incapacitated

i managed to write to tui saying I wanted the balance refunded to me also letting them know I had misplaced the card
they came back to me with a list of steps to do
i was too incapacitated to do them at the tii have since followed the steps to get my money back amd they have now said that since it is over six years since I loaded the card they don’t have to refund me
they are keeping over a grand of my money
does anyone have any good advice please on how to persuade them to refund me?
surely since I was too incapacitated to take steps to get my money back they could make allowances?

Thanks

hannah

eskbanker

The (current) Ts & Cs of the card do make it clear that you can only retrieve the funds within six years of the card's expiry date:

9.4.3 If the Card has not been used in the last six months prior to the expiry date, or if you do not reply to the email, or if you have not registered a valid email address with My Account, then we’ll close your Account on the expiry date. Any outstanding Currency Balance on the Card at expiry will remain yours for a period of six years from the expiry date, you can request a refund anytime by contacting Customer Services or by visiting a Store (fees apply, see paragraph 14). Any funds remaining across all of the Currencies on the Card for in excess of six years from the expiry date will not be returned to you.

However, you could try constructing a legal case that a clause such as this is unfair?

Personally I wouldn't have thought that an argument that you were too incapacitated for many years would make any difference, and now that you've played that card without success, I suspect that there isn't any more mileage in it....

[Deleted User]

If you go to Court: would you be able to provide evidence e.g. doctor's letter to the prove that you were unable to do those steps and did you make any further contact with them to advise you were unable to do those steps to give them the opportunity to provide an alternative? 

Hannahphoenix

Thanks for all you comments here
i remembered I actually went to a tui shop in blue water in 2018 to get the money returned to me but they could not access the details their end and so did not reimburse.  Will this help?

eskbanker

Hannahphoenix said:

Thanks for all you comments here
i remembered I actually went to a tui shop in blue water in 2018 to get the money returned to me but they could not access the details their end and so did not reimburse.  Will this help?

It might, if there's any evidence of this and if so, if it was still within the six year window.

However, if you were able to visit a store in a large out-of-town shopping centre in 2018, it obviously won't do much for your contention that you were too incapacitated over many years to pursue this....

Hannahphoenix

this was be the visit was before my accident. I have proof of when the accident wAs. I don’t have any record of the visit. Surely they must have something on record? 

eskbanker

Hannahphoenix said:

this was be the visit was before my accident. I have proof of when the accident wAs. I don’t have any record of the visit. Surely they must have something on record? 

I doubt that there'd be any retrievable record of an unsuccessful attempt to access card details instore three years ago, but you could ask them, if necessary via a formal subject access request under the Data Protection Act.

However, it's still unclear as to whether that would make any significance difference to how they view your case - perhaps it would help if you shared the expiry date of the card and the key events of the subsequent six years, including rough dates of your periods of incapacitation when you were unable to contact them?

Have you gone through their formal complaints procedure yet (as defined at clause 21 of the Ts & Cs linked above)?  If that doesn't bear fruit, then you have the option of escalating to the Financial Ombudsman Service, who consider matters from a broader perspective of fairness rather than simply legality.

As above, as a last resort you might be able to make a case that the contract term preventing refunds after six years is unfair, but if it got to that point, you'd probably benefit from specialist legal advice, or even just input from Citizens Advice and/or forums such as Legal Beagles....

emmajones1976

What sort of card is it? Is it just a prepaid Mastercard or Visa? If so, couldnt you just run the balance down in the UK in shops and supermarkets etc?
Obviously you would need to order a replacement card first.