Still trying to get refund for Sri Lanka holiday cancelled by package provider - HELP!

born_again

So in the time frame below. Zero Employees. Max number of employees has only ever been 1.

Would be interesting to know why

Compulsory strike-off action has been discontinued in May 2021.

twopenny

Thank you Mark, that makes it all clearer.
I need to be on a computer to say anything further but it looks like Bornagain has made a start.

twopenny

Sorry to say Mark but they are not registered with Companies House, no website and only the same name on FaceBook,

I found an address on another (Canadian) website 26 York St, London W1U 6PZ, multiple businesses such as cleaners etc but no Escape in Sri Lanka.

https://www.ampliz.com/company/escape-in-sri-lanka/97167077

That page gives the same web address but clicking on it gives 403 Forbiden.

Viani London (@escapinsrilanka on Twitter) however have reviews for Escape in Sri Lanka thanking them. They finish in Feb 2020. They are also registered with Companies House at a different address and the one director/staff resides at a different address. So you have ways to communicate. It seems to be submitting accounts regularly to date which is promising

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07333116

You can of course use the address from  CH to look at the offices on StreetView or contact them on Twitter or FaceBook. That is often mentioned as a good way to contact those who aren't answering as it's public.

I'm thinking this is why the bank are being awkward. Difficult to contact. I'm not sure where you stand as you haven't paid the full amount. That is usually regarded as breaking the contract despite that they didn't respond to your request but you really need to know where you stand.

If you need legal advice I have to warn that high street solicitors etc are poor for travel problems. Been there, done that. You need someone who specialises in travel. But only go with no win no fee - and check what percentage they will want. They would only take a case they are confident of winning.

lisyloo

Mark_R said:

Thanks to you all for your quick and very helpful ongoing feedback, this is more than I've had from any relevant organisations so far and it's very much appreciated!

@lisyloo :
I will have to check whether I have legal cover on home insurance. If so, and if I had to go to court for this, would I then raise a claim on my home insurance and effectively use them as my solicitors?
Or do you mean I should just ask them for further legal advice on how to proceed?

@born_again :
"I'm a bit confused by the "Must give full refund" when you have not made full payment."
Sorry, I should have clarified that by "full refund" I meant full refund of the money paid so far, the £19k.

@eskbanker / @twopenny :
The company is Viani London Ltd and the name of their Sri Lanka specialist travel arm is "Escape in Sri Lanka" -- their website was www.escapeinsrilanka.com .

To clarify on the travel date, etc.:
For the 1st postponement until Feb-2021: they sent us an updated itinerary email including specific travel dates/times and flight details - the flights were cancelled by them (or possibly never booked) due to the 2nd postponement.
For the 2nd postponement until Dec-2021: In July-2021 they sent an email stating "your holiday is rescheduled starting the 20th December 2021 (first night in Sri Lanka) without any changes to the original (Feb-2021) itinerary", with a separate email stating "I have the confirmation from the operational office in Sri Lanka" and that nearer the travel date they would send us a new itinerary, though they never did despite our requests.
So they confirmed that the itinerary we'd be following would be the same as for the Feb-2021 trip but with the start date changed to 20-Dec-2021.
They had not booked/confirmed flight details yet so we had no confirmation of an actual flight time on 19th Dec (it would be an overnight flight).

wrt legal help.
You may have a free legal helpline available to speak to a professional solicitor for free.
This doesn't seem like it's going to be something they can just answer over the phone but it's an avenue of free professional advice.

If you have legal cover then you may be able to use that, however they will not take on cases they aren't likely to win so usually there has to be a > 50% chance of winning.
So just because you have cover doesn't mean they will agree you have a claim.
However it's still a route worth pursuing because if they deem you don't have >50% chance of winning then at least you haven't wasted your own money and you have the benefit of that professional judgment for free.

Personally I like to buy my legal cover separately from home insurance (it's about £15 annually).
I do this because I've read about issues with home insurance claims and you can't use the home insurance legal policy to sue the home insurance.
It's an unlikely scenario but if it did happen (fire or flood) then it's likely to be a "biggie".

Mark_R

@eskbanker :
"but I can see why your card provider might have issues with the essentially unconfirmed nature of the December booking, i.e. if it was all a bit vague then that could be interpreted as a looser agreement between the parties and therefore another postponement could be construed as not being a clear breach of contract.  It sounds like the bank hasn't used this line of argument yet though, but I'm just highlighting a possible interpretation of how the PTRs might not be as useful to you as you hoped."
Yes I get that, though I'm hoping that the fact that we had written confirmation in email of a travel start date and an itinerary with implied dates would be sufficient.  All evidence of this has been supplied to the bank and I will be sure to cite the PTRs to them again when I reply to their arguments in my original posting.

@born_again / @twopenny :
Yes their Companies House records do seem a tad sparse! But they did have a travel office in London and we dealt with at least two agents (neither of which was the MD listed in CH) during the course of this ordeal.
Re: contact, I don't think there is anything else I can do with Viani London themselves as they have continually refused my demands for a refund. On the advice of Citizen's Advice I had even sent a "Burden of Proof" letter by email and recorded delivery to their registered office and to the MD's address which included a request for their official complaints procedure and whether they were willing to use an ADR scheme to resolve this -- the email and letter to the MD were ignored, the letter to the Registered office came back as "return to sender".

"I'm not sure where you stand as you haven't paid the full amount. That is usually regarded as breaking the contract despite that they didn't respond to your request but you really need to know where you stand."
I'm hoping this is mitigated by the fact that we requested an invoice for final payment and did get a response that postponement was our only option -- so it shows willingness on our part and unwillingness on their part.

@lisyloo / @twopenny :
All good points on legal advice and solicitors, thank you.  I'm really hoping it won't have to go to court as I assume it would mean large fees for us which we can't recoup from the travel agency.

lisyloo

If you have a legal cover policy then you shouldn't have to pay for court or solicitors fees - that's the entire point of having legal insurance.

eskbanker

One other point to bear in mind - if the company is no longer trading or in some sort of state of insolvency, etc, then no amount of court action can recover the money if it doesn't have sufficient residual assets to cover the liability.  That's not to say that efforts shouldn't be made to pursue that if necessary, but just an observation that even if successful in court, that's no guarantee of ever seeing all or even any of the money, so a bank with deeper pockets is likely to be the more productive route if the s75 claim can be made to stick....

Alan_Bowen

If the company was a member of PTS ( and why did they say they could not help?) then your money and every other customer's funds should have been placed in a trust account, so even if the company is insolvent, customers' money is supposed to be safe. The trustee of PTS is a well-known travel accountant who I hope is fully aware of his legal obligations to protect customer money. Go back to PTS and push them to intervene, if they don't you could report the matter to the CAA

twopenny

The problem seems to be that Viani are still using the escapesrilanka headed on Facebook and Twitter for customers, the company is still viable (sort of) on companies house.
Someone is trying to keep it alive to use the title.
It should be possible to make links with research of names addresses in the public domain and Google maps can show you the buildings and what businesses occupy them.
I'd say there is a connection and that shows where to aim.

sheramber

Alan_Bowen said:

If the company was a member of PTS ( and why did they say they could not help?) then your money and every other customer's funds should have been placed in a trust account, so even if the company is insolvent, customers' money is supposed to be safe. The trustee of PTS is a well-known travel accountant who I hope is fully aware of his legal obligations to protect customer money. Go back to PTS and push them to intervene, if they don't you could report the matter to the CAA

I think the relevant word is IF.

they do not appear on the member search