No protection with Viator and intermediaries

paulpcunningham7

I was recently ripped off by a tour comapny with a tour I purchased on Viator WITH A CREDIT CARD for protection. viator simply said that I cannot claim becuase they are not the supplier and the rogue company offered minimal rebate. Santander say my Section 75 claim is invalid because of the break in the chain. This is hugely significant and includes Booking.com etc. In effect, the credit card protection is worth nothing. You must book direct with the supplier to get protection. Can MSE put pressure on the government to intervene to protect customers?

oldernonethewiser

This has been highlighted many times and why people generally recommend booking directly with an operator/provider rather than through a third party.

born_again

paulpcunningham7 said:

I was recently ripped off by a tour comapny with a tour I purchased on Viator WITH A CREDIT CARD for protection. viator simply said that I cannot claim becuase they are not the supplier and the rogue company offered minimal rebate. Santander say my Section 75 claim is invalid because of the break in the chain. This is hugely significant and includes Booking.com etc. In effect, the credit card protection is worth nothing. You must book direct with the supplier to get protection. Can MSE put pressure on the government to intervene to protect customers?

MSE do not read these posts.
If ML did go after this he would be opening a can of worms that would end up with consumer worse off.

There is no chance of this sort of change. If anything if S75 was reassessed. There would be a big loss of S75 protection on credit cards. As S75 was never intended for this type of credit & card providers would lobby a lot harder than anyone else on this.

You do still have chargebacks. But that depends on the situation.

Aylesbury_Duck

I agree.  If you want to use credit cards for S75 protection, you have a responsibility to understand how it works and when it applies.  In that sense it's little different from an insurance policy.

Okell

born_again said:

... There is no chance of this sort of change. If anything if S75 was reassessed. There would be a big loss of S75 protection on credit cards. As S75 was never intended for this type of credit & card providers would lobby a lot harder than anyone else on this...

That comment takes me back...

In the early 1980s I was studying the law of credit and security and our professor was this bloke ( Anthony Guest - Wikipedia) and he was also the editor of - amongst other publications - the lawyer's reference work, the Encyclopedia of Consumer Credit Law, published by Sweet & Maxwell.

It was a frequent topic of debate 44 years ago in his class as to whether this new idea that s75 also applied to credit card purchases was correct, or whether it was pushing the reach of the CCA 1974 too far, and further than Parliament intended.

Obviously - to those familiar with my posts - I must have forgotten pretty much everything I learned in his class...    

DullGreyGuy

Okell said:

born_again said:

... There is no chance of this sort of change. If anything if S75 was reassessed. There would be a big loss of S75 protection on credit cards. As S75 was never intended for this type of credit & card providers would lobby a lot harder than anyone else on this...

That comment takes me back...

In the early 1980s I was studying the law of credit and security and our professor was this bloke ( Anthony Guest - Wikipedia) and he was also the editor of - amongst other publications - the lawyer's reference work, the Encyclopedia of Consumer Credit Law, published by Sweet & Maxwell.

It was a frequent topic of debate 44 years ago in his class as to whether this new idea that s75 also applied to credit card purchases was correct, or whether it was pushing the reach of the CCA 1974 too far, and further than Parliament intended.

Obviously - to those familiar with my posts - I must have forgotten pretty much everything I learned in his class...    

It does, because credit cards are covered by the CCA but it wasnt designed with them in mind. There have been various cases escalated to the highest court (mainly back when it was the House of Lords) to clarify certain aspects like if the merchant bank of the supplier breaks the chain or if overseas spending is covered. 

paulpcunningham7 said:
In effect, the credit card protection is worth nothing. You must book direct with the supplier to get protection. Can MSE put pressure on the government to intervene to protect customers?

Why should a bank have to protect you?

When the CCA S75 came into being credit cards barely existed, the type of credit that it was intended to cover is like when you go to a sofa shop and they offer you credit with Blackhorse or Barclays etc. In those scenarios the bank has explicitly agreed to work with the supplier, they've had opportunity to vet them and hence there is justification as to why their money is on the line too. 

With a credit card the issuing bank has no meaningful control over who is authorised to accept it, particularly with the proliferation of things like Zettle/Paypal etc. Given you can use it to buy a "Rolex" from someone in a back street of anywhere in the world for £150 why should the bank lose out when it turns out the watch is fake or stolen?

Okell

DullGreyGuy said:

Okell said:

born_again said:

... There is no chance of this sort of change. If anything if S75 was reassessed. There would be a big loss of S75 protection on credit cards. As S75 was never intended for this type of credit & card providers would lobby a lot harder than anyone else on this...

That comment takes me back...

In the early 1980s I was studying the law of credit and security and our professor was this bloke ( Anthony Guest - Wikipedia) and he was also the editor of - amongst other publications - the lawyer's reference work, the Encyclopedia of Consumer Credit Law, published by Sweet & Maxwell.

It was a frequent topic of debate 44 years ago in his class as to whether this new idea that s75 also applied to credit card purchases was correct, or whether it was pushing the reach of the CCA 1974 too far, and further than Parliament intended.

Obviously - to those familiar with my posts - I must have forgotten pretty much everything I learned in his class...    

It does, because credit cards are covered by the CCA but it wasnt designed with them in mind...

I know - I've studied the CCA as part of a LLM.

44 years ago the idea that the CCA covered credit cards was still quite a novel one, and the subject of academic discussion.

IIRC the opinion of Prof Guest was that of course it covered cards.