Alpharooms fraud. Please help

Alan_Bowen

It is obvious TTA are not paying any Alpha Rooms claims and seem to think that if they keep telling people to go back to their banks, who for debit cards have no legal liability to pay at all, they will give up and go away, and some of them clearly will.

You have it seems only two choices, go to the press, perhaps start with your local paper as this may attract the attention of the national press or take legal action on the basis of the promise from TTA that all money would be held in a trust account. It cannot be there, otherwise, they would pay out, and in the past, TTA have been good at doing so

Krankyoldman

Not on Facebook but a couple of comments in my final email from TTA
"As you know, Alpha Holidays Ltd entered liquidation on 1st December 2021 and TTA Travel implemented a claims process for all customers. 
This process required verification of claims and agreement for a mechanism of reimbursement; this has now been finalised with the UK credit and debit card issuers. 
To complete this process, you are now eligible to contact your card issuer and submit a claim under the Chargeback scheme administered by your card provider."
"Please note that if you have previously had a rejection from your card issuer you should now re-submit, and your claim should be re-considered to enable the next steps to be completed"
Twice now Nationwide have rejected my chargeback request on my Credit Card on the grounds of 'out of time for claim' - the second time they didn't even tell me that my claim had been refused until I rang them 2 months later !
What happened to the Financial Ombudsman or the Financial Conduct Authority ?

Alan_Bowen

Firstly the trust accounts operated, or not as the case may be, by travel agents have never been subject to FCA control. Right now the whole system of financial protection for the travel industry is under review and I have been advocating that there needs to be registration and effective control for those who want to operate trust accounts in travel but none of that helps you.

If you really did use a credit card, as opposed to a debit card, then claims under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act can by law be made up to 6 years after the date of payment and that is a legal right. The weakness relates to debit cards, where there is absolutely no legal right to a chargeback but Visa MasterCard and Amex voluntarily offer refunds but for a very limited period after payment, normally 120 days, but for most Alpha clients that is of no use at all. If your claim was under a debit card then Nationwide have no liability at all but the Travel Trust Association whose member failed, should have access to all the funds in the trust and you should remind them that they have a legal obligation to refund.

In practical terms it appears they may not have the money to refund in which case you need to contact your MP (most will accept email complaints) and ask them to put pressure on the Minister to act, I know others have already begun to do so and also register a complaint with Citizens Advice who will pass it on to local Trading Standards and finally the enforcement body is the CMA, the Competitions and Markets Authority (generalenquiries@cma.gov.uk) They were the organisation that took legal action against the parent company of Alpha to get refunds for Teletext Holiday customers and seem to be very effective