Credit card authorisation and CCA

Orbit_2

I have a technical/legal question regarding the consumer credit act and credit cards.

As i understand it, if you make a purchase using your credit card and the goods or services fail to arrive or are not fit for purpose you can pursue the matter with the merchant or the credit card issuer and get your money back.

But what happens when the supplier passes on your credit card details to a 3rd party who then process the transaction on their behalf?

As i understand it this helps the supplier get around the CCA as the merchant is no longer the supplier. The only service you are getting from the merchant is credit card processing.

But surely this can't be legal? When you provide your credit card details to a company you are only authorising them to take a payment not for them to pass on your details to a 3rd party, right?

I'm in a situation where I've made a rather large payment on my card for an item that has failed to arrive (this is from a private LTD firm not something off eBay). I've contacted my credit card company for a refund but have been informed that the company who took payment isn't the same company that I agreed to make the purchase from. Therefore the credit card company is refusing to help.

But my point is that i didn't authorise the 3rd party to take a payment off my card and certainly didn't authorise the supplier to pass on my credit card details to a 3rd party. Surely there must be some protection for the consumer in this situation short of civil action?

Thanks in advance for any help

relay

Silly question but why don't you just contact the 3rd party to tell them you didn't authorise them to take a payment and cancel the order & get a refund from them?

Orbit_2

That would be a simple solution. Except i know nothing about them. Who they are where they are based. I guess i should be able to get this information from the credit card company. i'll look into that.

I get the feeling that i've fallen for a con. The deal felt to good to be true and the only reason i went for it was because i thought i'd be protected by my card. I guess they thought of that too.

benf90

I wouldn't like to comment on the legalities etc myself because I don't know the answer for definate and wouldn't like to guess. But, these two websites seem to explain section 75 of the CCA:

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/31/creditcards-31.htm

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/reports/consumer_credit/oft303.pdf

From the first link:

"There can be problems if the card is accepted by a different business from the one that provided the goods and services. We see this situation most frequently in connection with timeshare and holiday club membership, where it is not unusual for the timeshare or holiday club company to use the credit card facilities of another business. The business accepting the payment may simply be acting as agent for the supplier, in which case section 75 will not apply. In order for section 75 to apply, the business that accepts the payment and the supplier have to be ‘associates’, as defined in the Consumer Credit Act."

The 2nd link (Office of Fair Trading) seems to go into more detail (too much to put in here).

Hope those links are of some help.

benf90

Another thought... does your credit card have any type of in transit protection? Some will provide it free of charge, sometimes hidden away on their website or in T&Cs etc.

There was a thread on here listing some of the card companies that do offer in transit protection. The only company listed there that I have a card with is Egg... looking at their site anything you buy using their card between £25 and £1000 is covered against damage, loss or theft when in transit to your home.

There will be exclusions etc and I've never had to use that type of cover before but it may be worth seeing if your card has that sort of protection on it.