Could not enter Booking.com property

brianposter

Are you not expected to phone Booking.com directly if you cannot enter the property ?

lr1277

OP if you are not aware, for a successful S75, the money comes from the card company's pocket. Wth a chargeback if sucessful, the money comes from the recipent's bank account.

Companies sometimes make S75 claims difficult because the money is coming from them. They rarely have a problem with chargebacks because the money is coming from someone else. However with a chargeback, the recipient can challenge the chargeback after you have received the money. So you may get the chargeback then it can be debited from your account again if the recipient is successful in their argument.

In your case I don't know which is the best approach legally speaking.

But from a personal point of view, I would want booking.com/landlord to lose out. Especially because they are a crappy landlord and booking.com took on a crappy landlord. But ths is me pontificating from a distance.

I believe you can try a chargeback if the S75 is unsuccessful as long as you are within the chargeback time limits.

atillathebun

What is the difference between chargeback and S75? I was under the impression that chargeback was for debit cards and S75 was for credit card purchases. This was done with a credit card so I assumed that S75 was the option to pursue.

born_again

atillathebun said:

What is the difference between chargeback and S75? I was under the impression that chargeback was for debit cards and S75 was for credit card purchases. This was done with a credit card so I assumed that S75 was the option to pursue.

Chargebacks are the same for Debit & Credit cards. They are card providers regulations Visa/Mastercard/Amex & over & above your legal rights.
S75 is a legal right to hold a credit provider jointly and severally liable for breach of contract &/or misrepresentation on purchases over £100 & upto £30K. 
Subject to item price.

So if you accommodation was £100 a night. it is outside the scope. But if invoice just stated £400 for booking it would be OK.

eskbanker

atillathebun said:

What is the difference between chargeback and S75? I was under the impression that chargeback was for debit cards and S75 was for credit card purchases. This was done with a credit card so I assumed that S75 was the option to pursue.

Section 75 is a statutory right under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, holding a creditor jointly and severally liable with the merchant, but in the context of cards, can only be used for credit card transactions.  It also has some stipulations, such as minimum item value (£100) and the fact that there must be a link between debtor, creditor and supplier, ruling out a range of transactions involving additional parties such as agencies.

Chargeback is run by the card schemes according to their own rules, which are relatively opaque, but can apply to debit card or credit card purchases.  It has its own restrictions too, such as shorter timescales for claiming, and the fact that it's only the value paid by card that can be reimbursed (s75 covers the entire transaction even if only part-paid by credit card).

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/visa-mastercard-chargeback/ explains all this and more....

And as per the above post, another key difference is where the refund comes from, i.e. the card company funds a s75 claim, but the merchant (or their bank) funds a successful chargeback.

PHK

atillathebun said:

Thank you all for your comments. I am finding this very helpful.

I had previously given my expected arrival time as 15:00 to 16:00 on the Friday and arrived around 15:30. The attempts to contact the owner via the given contact details started at 16:19.

At that time, we were starting a long weekend, the number given to me was obviously for a business in Indonesia that had closed for the weekend, there was no indication that the owner would respond to my messages, and accomodation on a bank holiday weekend in Brighton was very limited. I had commitments from 9am to 8pm on the following three days so, booking one night and then seeing whether the owner would eventually get back to me so I could sort it out the following day was not a feasible option. 

I will go through the S75 claim process and see how I go.

I'd say that when you didn't get a reply from the owner, you should have contacted Booking.com. In similar circumstances if they are also unable to contact the owner they've arranged accomodation elsewhere or a refund. 

lr1277

Whichever method you chose, I hope you can include the unresponsiveness of the landlord as part of your argument.
From my POV, according to Google:
Indonesia has 3 time zones
It does not apply daylight savings time.
And at the moment Indonesia is 6 hours ahead of UK time.
I don’t know if your stay was during British winter time or British summertime.
But the landlord could be between 6 and 9 hours ahead of you. They did not employ an agent to ensure you entered the property, irrespective of them insisting the code should work. 

Given the time difference they might have been asleep when you first messaged them. My suspicion is that this is further evidenced by them replying at 00:30, so could have been between 6:30am and 9:30 am for them.
In my view running the business from Indonesia and not having a local agent is wrong.
But it’s not my view that counts. It is the view of your card company that matters.

Edited to add: I don’t know if it is better to try chargeback or S75 first. Perhaps others on here can advise.
My only experience with S75 was a failed hotel booking I made through an agent. The online agent reserved the room but did not pay the hotel. Then before my stay, the agent went bust. I contacted the hotel, and my booking did not exist. Received wisdom is S75 does not apply to bookings made through an agent break the creditor supplier relationship mentioned above. However I contacted my credit card company and they suggested the chargeback route. But not understanding the date restrictions on chargeback I thought that would not work. The card company agreed to a S75 claim. I put in the claim including my supporting evidence that the online agent was not contactable and the card company paid up about 6 weeks later. My suspicion is the card company paid because the agent did not do the one thing they were supposed to do which was make the booking. But as I said that is only a suspicion.

Malthusian

RefluentBeans said:
Of course it matters if the code works. If the OP couldn’t access the apartment because they couldn’t enter a 4 digit code correctly, then it isn’t on the property owners to enter the code for them. 

If a guest who has paid to rent your property rings you up and says "I can't get in" it is your responsibility to get them in. Whether that is by correcting their mistake in entering the code, or correcting the mistake you made in giving it, or fixing the broken lock.

Expecting checkin staff to be there 24/7 when it’s a small business is, frankly, naive. 

Expecting there to never be any issues that might require your attention (or somebody's attention) when a new guest moves into your property is naïve. If you don't want to be on call 24/7 you can hire an agent to deal with such issues.

If someone can't run a small business properly they should sell it to someone more competent and put the cash in the bank or tracker funds.

The lock could have broken, or OP might have been given the wrong code. At this point nobody can prove it either way, and the inability of the property owner to respond to a simple issue tilts the balance of probability more towards it being an error on the owner's part.

lr1277 said:

My suspicion is the card company paid because the agent did not do the one thing they were supposed to do which was make the booking. But as I said that is only a suspicion.

I believe you are correct. Because the travel agent had breached your contract, you had a section 75 claim against them.

If the travel agent had paid your money to the hotel, and the hotel had then gone bust, you might not have had a section 75 claim because the travel agent did what you paid them to do, and you did not have a contract directly with the hotel. However, there could still have been a section 75 claim if the travel agent had taken your money as an agent for the hotel.