Bank denied chargeback - your advice please

2babyboys

Hello, I recently returned from a holiday and encountered several issues with the villa we rented through a UK agency. I paid £1400 for an 11-day stay at a villa with a pool. Unfortunately, for three days, the pool was unusable due to water problems, there was constant construction noise, and the kitchen was overrun with ants. Despite reporting these issues to the villa company, their response was inadequate. I requested a partial refund and even proposed leaving the villa early for a refund of the unused days, but they declined. After filing a dispute with Halifax, they deemed me ineligible for a refund because we stayed at the villa, suggesting we should have cancelled our stay. This is confusing, and I have since lodged a complaint with Halifax, awaiting their response. Could you offer any advice?

eskbanker

My advice would be to await their response....

However, even if Halifax agreed to accept a chargeback claim, the villa company would probably dispute it, and even if they didn't, they'd still be able to pursue you for any refund later, so I doubt that chargeback would actually resolve the issue in the way you might have hoped.

DullGreyGuy

Was it paid by debit card or credit card? 

Chargeback rules are fairly strict/restrictive and whilst they suit the 75% of problems there are a host of things which you may have a genuine claim under law but aren't covered by chargeback.

2babyboys

Hiya, so I paid with debit card, thanks

2babyboys

any other suggestions of ways i can get this resolved please?  thanks

born_again

They are right.
Under card regs, as you stayed there is nothing that can be claimed back. Even though certain parts were not available for part of the stay.
You would need to chase owners in reality.
Agency will say the same at a guess, as they are only a 3rd party service.

Not even sure if Holiday Ins would cover that @DullGreyGuy

For any partial chargeback you need to provide a breakdown of the part being claimed back. So unless on the invoice it said
Pool £x a day you have no hope.

PHK

It's unlikely holiday/travel insurance would cover loss of enjoyment. You had the stay but are unhappy with it. 

It would have been wise to have contacted the insurance company whilst on holiday. 

In this situation, I think a chargeback will fail. 

The OP needs to follow the complaint procedure of the "villa company"  Exactky what to do and who to escalate to will depend how it was booked. Who was it booked with?

DullGreyGuy

As mentioned above, loss of enjoyment/ facilities not being available etc are not perils covered by normal travel insurance. 

As the OP has paid by debit card they will have to pursue either the villa management or the agent depending if it was a package and who's party to the contract etc. 

Mark_d

As you were provided with the villa I doubt you'd be successful with chargeback.  Maybe you'd have had better luck if you paid by credit card, and then had the benefit of Section 75 protection.

You documented the issues you experienced and the villa company were unable to agree a fair and reasonable resolution.  Have you escalated your complaint via the villa company's policy?

Maybe one avenue to explore is citizens advice/trading standards.

You could try complaining on social media - bad publicity on review sites and Twitter might provoke a response from the company.

Perhaps a holiday magazine with a complaints column would take on your care - their writers often seems to get positive responses when they raise consumer issues.