Complex Credit Card Chargeback

vodouman

Hey all,

Just looking to the community for some guidance on this one...

We bought a kitchen and bathroom renovation from a local Cardiff-based company.

The cost for the full job was ~£52k. Including all the units, installation, removal of debris, make-good, plastering, etc. The whole thing.

The quotes were split, one for the bathroom and one for the kitchen.

The bathroom was ~£17.5k
The kitchen was ~£33k

For protection, we paid across a few different credit cards...

The problems
The bathroom and kitchen has gone in to some extent, but we have been left with lots of things unfinished, items not delivered that were listed in the quotes. In some cases, the company fitted units that were an entirely different (cheaper/inferior) brand than was agreed in the quotes. We have an entire room in our house where the company have pulled the ceiling down and left the joists exposed and wires hanging down everywhere. We've been left in a building site.

The company also damaged LOADS of things whilst fitting. We have incredible, shocking amounts of evidence here, all in writing from the company.

Unfortunately, I think the company has run into financial difficulties, they're still solvent, but they're refusing to reply to our calls, emails and letters at this point. We offered to pay for dispute resolution to help us to a conclusion and they refused to respond to the email/letter. The company is also operating as a different brand (renamed themselves) on social media. They still exist on UKGov site.

The resolution
We are ~500 days into the installation (yes, insane...) and first direct have kindly helped us with a chargeback for all of the transactions we spent using my Visa card with them. It's been submitted and it's in progress now. Great. The reason was 'Not as described'. Although, we have lumped everything in with the evidence.

Unfortunately, our other credit card provider, Halifax (Mastercard), have been horrific.

They have flatly refused to help us escalate a credit card charge back because it's beyond 120 days and we 'haven't asked the retailer to return the items' which is apparently a requirement for them to escalate the charge back. It's really frustrating because the local business is refusing to respond to us, and I'm also not quite sure what we're asking them to return, they haven't delivered some items and there's stuff outstanding...

...So Halifax pushed us to Section 75. I received a letter today from Halifax to say that they won't be taking S75 any further because our kitchen is >£30k. So we're out of luck.



Q. Does the stance from Halifax seem correct here?

I was of the belief that we 540 days to dispute the chargeback. I don't know why it's okay for First Direct, but not for Halifax. And I'm not sure why they've declined our S75 either. Whilst the total value of the kitchen exceeds the £30k maximum, the bathroom does fit the requirements.

Any ideas welcome :-)

DullGreyGuy

What is shown on the invoice for the kitchen? A single price for the whole job or different line items with prices against each item?

£30k is the item limit not the invoice limit and so if its broken down then you should be able to claim for each item thats in the £100 to £30,000 range 

I dont know the full chargeback process well enough to know if FD have accepted the chargeback if the other bank can then reject it as time barred. What was the due date for the work to be completed?

vodouman

DullGreyGuy said:

What is shown on the invoice for the kitchen? A single price for the whole job or different line items with prices against each item?

£30k is the item limit not the invoice limit and so if its broken down then you should be able to claim for each item thats in the £100 to £30,000 range 

I dont know the full chargeback process well enough to know if FD have accepted the chargeback if the other bank can then reject it as time barred. What was the due date for the work to be completed?

There was no date of completion promised, but we did have them onsite working for us as recently as mid-January this year, before they stopped replying to us.

Is that a fact on the £30k item limit vs. invoice limit? If that's the case, it's helpful because inside each quote they don't price the line items, but they do have a summary at the end... something like:

+Furniture: £XXX
+ Installation: £XXX
+ Sinks and Fittings £XXX
+ Misc £XXX

DullGreyGuy

vodouman said:
Is that a fact on the £30k item limit vs. invoice limit? If that's the case, it's helpful because inside each quote they don't price the line items, but they do have a summary at the end... something like:

+Furniture: £XXX
+ Installation: £XXX
+ Sinks and Fittings £XXX
+ Misc £XXX

The legislations states:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/39/section/75

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to a claim—

(a) under a non-commercial agreement, 

(b) so far as the claim relates to any single item to which the supplier has attached a cash price not exceeding £100 or more than £30,000, or

So your complaint to them is that each of those lines should be treated as one item and therefore each are within the scope... if it will succeed I have to say I cant say because like most legislation its highly open to interpretation.

Having looked at Financial Ombudsman rulings I have seen cases where building work has been chunked into phases with prices and they have rejected that these are separate items. Unfortunately the only case I can see of kitchen being over £30k got into a rabbit hole of the fact they paid for a design service and a second invoice for the kitchen and the ombudsman believes the payment on the CC was for the design not the kitchen so rejected the complaint on those grounds and didnt materially opine on if the kitchen was under or over £30k.

vodouman

DullGreyGuy said:

vodouman said:
Is that a fact on the £30k item limit vs. invoice limit? If that's the case, it's helpful because inside each quote they don't price the line items, but they do have a summary at the end... something like:

+Furniture: £XXX
+ Installation: £XXX
+ Sinks and Fittings £XXX
+ Misc £XXX

The legislations states:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/39/section/75

(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to a claim—

(a) under a non-commercial agreement, 

(b) so far as the claim relates to any single item to which the supplier has attached a cash price not exceeding £100 or more than £30,000, or

So your complaint to them is that each of those lines should be treated as one item and therefore each are within the scope... if it will succeed I have to say I cant say because like most legislation its highly open to interpretation.

Having looked at Financial Ombudsman rulings I have seen cases where building work has been chunked into phases with prices and they have rejected that these are separate items. Unfortunately the only case I can see of kitchen being over £30k got into a rabbit hole of the fact they paid for a design service and a second invoice for the kitchen and the ombudsman believes the payment on the CC was for the design not the kitchen so rejected the complaint on those grounds and didnt materially opine on if the kitchen was under or over £30k.

Interesting. Thanks for sending that over.

I’ll give Halifax a call and see how far I get. It’s really frustrating they won’t push it forwards as a charge back like First Direct did. It’d be nice to exhaust that avenue first.

From a First Direct perspective, I’ve had £24k slapped back on my credit card and the chargeback is now in the phase where the company must dispute my claims. I sent first direct an exhaustive amount of evidence. I can’t imagine there’s any world in which they can dispute it really — this isn’t an Amazon, or a large company. We’ve got daily/weekly emails where they admit fault again and again and promise to fix things for months on end, or deliver stuff that hasn’t shown up yet and they never do.

Final Question for Now

I said at the top of this thread, this is a complex issue… we paid for the kitchen/bathroom with four different credit cards. I know that might sound insane… but we did it for protection for exactly this reason.

Since we’re on the chargeback path with FD, we’ll see where that leads.

Whilst Halifax have refused to support chargeback or S75, we’re waiting to hear back from the other two as to whether they will proceed with chargeback.

Halifax told me that only one of my banks would be able to escalate my S75 claim and would loop in all the other money spent on cards with other banks on my behalf. Is that the correct way to proceed? Would I have to wait for the ongoing charge backs to resolve to start that work?

I’m so grateful to the community for the answers here. It’s really hard because none of the banks seem to know what they’re doing in the first place, then you add the extra layer of complexity of the multiple cards and then I seem to get nowhere.

DullGreyGuy

vodouman said:
Halifax told me that only one of my banks would be able to escalate my S75 claim and would loop in all the other money spent on cards with other banks on my behalf. Is that the correct way to proceed? Would I have to wait for the ongoing charge backs to resolve to start that work?

Not strictly true, there is nothing in S75 of the CCA to say that however to receive a full claim against each would be undue enrichment. 

In theory you can claim against each for your losses minus any successful chargeback amount but would have to discontinue the action against the others once the first one settles. 

vodouman

Just to give everyone an update, as this may serve helpful to others in future.

First Direct - pushed claim forwards with chargeback under 540 day rule. Money credited back to my card and time is ticking down.

10/10 experience.

Halifax - I called them up and managed to get through to an incredibly helpful, knowledgeable guy named Jamie. He has told us that everything the other reps had told us was ridiculous. He has pushed our claim forwards with chargeback under the 540 day rule. Money has been credited back to my card and the time is ticking.

7/10 experience, would have been 10/10 if we'd been connected to Jamie from the get-go.

M&S - M&S are the most difficult bank I've dealt with. I don't really know how to deal with them. They made us complete a form on their website which has gone into a void. We rang them up and they insisted that Mastercard only allow you to escalate within 120 days. We told them that Halifax (Mastercard) had managed to do it just fine. We argued for over an hour and then she checked with a colleague and they changed their mind. They then told us to complete a DIFFERENT form on their website. Unfortunately our case doesn't fit neatly into the questions provided and there's no way for us to upload supporting evidence.

We spoke to them again today and they told us they'll come back to us within 60 days... I don't really know how to progress here because if we wait 60 days, we'll be outside the 540 days, I don't have anything in writing to say that they've told us to wait 60 days. I don't know how to tackle this because I need to provided all our supporting evidence and it seems like there's no way to speak to a person who understands the process to get this escalated and submitted properly.

1/10 - the worst banking experience I've ever dealt with. I don't think it's going to be possible for me to escalate a chargeback with these guys.

Lloyds TSB - These guys also have a form. We've completed the form. It's basic and much like the M&S form, it didn't allow us to provide context and supporting evidence. I'm hopeful there's an option for us to speak to someone who knows what they're talking about, but it doesn't seem as bad as M&S.

I'll rank these folks when we're further down the road.


Any tips on how we deal with M&S would be helpful. It feels like they're going to mess up the escalation.

vodouman

Just to update this one.

Halifax have put our case forwards. The merchant has declined our chargeback and has issued a final statement. We made a response to their final statement and pushed it back to Halifax.

Before Halifax can put the case to Mastercard, they have messaged me to tell me that I must provide 'written confirmation to the merchant that the goods are available for uplift.'

This isn't a big company, this is a family business of two. This chargeback has caused bitterness. If I write them a letter like that I'd expect them to show up at home with my hammers and destroy the place. I explained this to Halifax but they say that it's this or cancel the chargeback. I also explained to Halifax that this case is that I paid for stuff that hasn't ever been delivered, the company has damaged items and admitted fault and never replaced things and that they've left sections of my home unliveable, e.g., I have a dining room with no ceiling. But they told me that it's 'my fault' because the chargeback has been raised for 'items not as described'. They told me my only option now is to close my chargeback case and look to S75 instead.

None of the other banks have asked me to provide this. I don't know what to do. It feels like Halifax have chosen the wrong chargeback route and may have cost me my opportunity at a resolution here :-( 

I don't know what to do now. Does anyone have any ideas?

DullGreyGuy

You are already trying to take money out of their bank account... if they were to be turning up with hammers I would strongly suggest that would have already happened and a letter saying goods are available for collection is not going to be the trigger for it

vodouman

Halifax have come back with a bit of a strange one...

With Halifax, they supported our chargeback case. They put it forwards. The merchant declined our claim and issued a statement. Halifax gave us the opportunity to provide a final statement before they pushed it back to Mastercard for a final ruling...

I provided my final statement to dispute the one from the merchant.

I woke up this morning to find that Halifax had pulled the money back out of my bank account.

Halifax have come back to me today to tell me that they will not be pushing it back to Mastercard for a final ruling because they need to 'determine if we have a case'.

I don't get what's going on. Halifax have started down the path and we've got all the evidence together and now they're refusing to support me? Can they abandon this halfway through the process without my approval?

DullGreyGuy

Yes, they aren't a court of law or solicitors. Chargeback is a very arbitrary tool that only really works well in undisputed/uncontested cases.