Travel Agency Fraud - is there a case?

Coffeegirl1994

Hello, 

This may be a little long so apologies in advance. Back in 2023, we were looking to visit our home country and booked tickets through a travel agency that we found online. Unsure exactly how we found them. https://mytripuk.com/

We were booked and travelled, all fine (me, hubby, 6yr old daughter and infant). On the return, we hit some issues in Istanbul where the gates were changed last minute and also due to losing some baggage which contained infant food and nappies, we missed the next flight and got stranded. After running around the transfers bit with an infant that needed milk and nappies leaking, no one helped in the airport or rebooked us onto the next flight (Turkish Airlines) - we were forced to get emergency visas and exist into the country so that we could find food supplies for our kids, and find somewhere to stay until we could get back home to the UK. After we existed and got all our luggage from lost property which is where they put it, another Turkish Airlines staff member managed to rebook us for the next morning, we then spent the night in the airport and got home the next day. 

During the time we were stuck in transit, we had to internet and the internet that was supplied was limited and would keep running out so were unable to make too much contact with family back home who were waiting to collect us from the airport. In broken bits of communication, we at the time thought there was no was to get home and we would be stuck in transfers until we booked a flight home (we did not have travel insurance - yes we learned a lesson).

During that time, I was able to speak to my sister who called the original travel agent I have linked above to see if there was a flight they could put us on to get home. They found a flight and charged us £3000. My sister was then asked to confirm via email whether she wanted to go ahead with the flight. This all happened within the space of an hour. She emailed back confirming, money was transferred and at around the same time, Turkish Airlines managed to re-book us. I immediately tried to get in touch with my sister to stop her from booking but obviously it had already gone through however the travel agency had not confirmed or sent any tickets. My sister sent another email to say do not book and cancel the flights. After this followed a lengthy battle where the travel agency refused to refund anything. Eventually they refunded £1000 which took about 6 months to get and accepted to give us a voucher of £375 to use for 1 year towards future travel. There is an email with the details of this. No other terms or conditions are in the voucher. 

Fast forward to this year, family members were looking to travel and we called to see if we could use the voucher. This started off a domino effect of an even worse nightmare. They said we could only use £90 voucher towards a ticket for 4 people. An infant was also not included even though he was one of the original passengers. The next person we spoke to said only £50 could be used and that the voucher is issued by airlines not them. 

My sister, her husband and newborn baby were looking to travel so I asked them if they wished to book using the vouchers, they did and so they did a booking with the travel agency for Ethihad Airways. The travel agent charged them £1500 for the tickets which were still slightly expensive compared to online tickets. They also said the tickets were amendable and refundable. They did not mention at any point, that fees would be charged for amending or refunding etc. 

The agency then booked them in via an agreement email. No copies of passports were sent at this point. My sister then sent the passports off by email and later in the day, they agency called to say that there was mistake in my sisters name on the ticket they had booked and it was her responsibility to check her name etc and therefore this mistake will cost her £400 to change it. They were very forceful and subjected her to extreme pressure on the phone and took a £100 from her. They then refused to release the tickets until she paid up £300. My sister asked for a cancellation and they said they would deduct fees and give her back £900 only from the original £1500. Then they called back to say actually only £400 would be refunded. By the end of the day, they pressured her by saying that the whole tickets will be cancelled and nothing would be refundable if she did not pay by midnight. By midnight she had paid £400 more. This was all happening without my knowledge, she was scared and did not wish to lose her tickets for travel. 

The next day, they still have not issued any tickets. She decided to call Etihad Airways to see if any tickets were in the process of being booked, they confirmed that the original tickets were reserved but never booked through and one of the passengers wasn't even on there and therefore the airline has not charged a cancellation fee. It just keeps getting messy. 

My question is this, is there anywhere that travel agencies are answerable to? I am thinking of putting a formal grievance against the company and in due course taking this to small claims court, because they have caused almost £5000 loss to us and continue to keep asking for more money. Would we stand a chance or would it be just more waste of money and is it better to call it a day here and leave it at that. I am in the process of gathering evidence from Turkish Airlines because my suspicions are that they never actually booked any tickets originally when we were stuck in Istanbul either. If anyone has any advice or things I should be asking for form the agency airlines etc, please can they share some. The other thing is that the company has excellent ratings on google and trip adviser and I'm not sure whether I am the only one being conned or the reviews are fake. 

DullGreyGuy

So you blame an agent for your problems, you find the voucher can only be used by someone else for £90 off which means its still more expensive than its available elsewhere so why did you (in the collective sense) continue to book more flights with them? I mean I pay a touch more for my travel agent occasionally but it's because they've given exceptional service when there have been problems but this makes no sense. 


Sounds like you missed the flight of your own accord, not sure what your allegations are against the agent for the missed connection? You had someone else try to book tickets simultaneously to yourself which lead to the very foreseeable issue that you ended up with two sets of non-refundable tickets... the fact she tried to cancel by email just exacerbates the issue of something where time is of the essence. 


Travel/lesuire on a specific date is excluded from statutory rights of cancellation and so the fact they offered a partial refund and the voucher is likely them going beyond what they are required to do. As such they can apply whatever terms they want on it... most vouchers like these can only be redeemed by the person that had the issues so allowing your Sister to use it again probably is going outside the terms. 


Travel sales isn't my area of expertise, I've only touched on it briefly in my career, but there are webs of sellers, resellers, wholesalers, suppliers. It's not all straight through processing and can be complicated with block bookings etc etc. A consequence can be that the ultimate supplier doesn't get all the information instantly and just because they aren't charging fees doesnt mean that other companies in the supply chain aren't. 


Ultimately, litigate if you want to but you will need to construct a much better argument on how they have breached the terms and conditions of the sales. 


More importantly the whole family needs to sit down and workout better ways in dealing travel than keep giving money to companies you dont like or trust. Generally:

1) Book direct with the airline online, then there are no others adding fees/charges etc, no issues of spelling your name correctly etc etc

2) Find a good travel agent that you trust and use them

3) Dont get multiple people trying to book the same things at the same time; bite the bullet, pay for roaming and either do it yourself online or use the staff at the airport. 

born_again

Interesting location for a travel agent. 

Can only echo the above points.

Coffeegirl1994

DullGreyGuy said:

So you blame an agent for your problems, you find the voucher can only be used by someone else for £90 off which means its still more expensive than its available elsewhere so why did you (in the collective sense) continue to book more flights with them? I mean I pay a touch more for my travel agent occasionally but it's because they've given exceptional service when there have been problems but this makes no sense. 

The voucher was actually given for £375 which occasionally is enough for return trip for one passenger which was the only person that was going to book with this agency again. The agency then decided to impose the restrictions that it was not £375 but £90 per person so in essence trying to save some money we ended up paying more. This was NOT mentioned in the original email confirming the voucher.


Sounds like you missed the flight of your own accord, not sure what your allegations are against the agent for the missed connection? You had someone else try to book tickets simultaneously to yourself which lead to the very foreseeable issue that you ended up with two sets of non-refundable tickets... the fact she tried to cancel by email just exacerbates the issue of something where time is of the essence.  

Missing the flight was definitely our own issue and we had left it at that. The point being that the company specifically WANT all reservations to be done/checked etc by email. She emailed and phoned I believe. To this day, tickets were never sent and when checking with Turkish Airlines today, they also say the tickets were never issued or reserved which makes me think that the agency claim to book and then not be able to cancel etc but they never actually booked any of my tickets but just charged and took money from us. Otherwise they should be able to provide a copy of the ticket regardless which they are unable to do so at the time or now.


Travel/lesuire on a specific date is excluded from statutory rights of cancellation and so the fact they offered a partial refund and the voucher is likely them going beyond what they are required to do. As such they can apply whatever terms they want on it... most vouchers like these can only be redeemed by the person that had the issues so allowing your Sister to use it again probably is going outside the terms. 


Travel sales isn't my area of expertise, I've only touched on it briefly in my career, but there are webs of sellers, resellers, wholesalers, suppliers. It's not all straight through processing and can be complicated with block bookings etc etc. A consequence can be that the ultimate supplier doesn't get all the information instantly and just because they aren't charging fees doesnt mean that other companies in the supply chain aren't. 


Ultimately, litigate if you want to but you will need to construct a much better argument on how they have breached the terms and conditions of the sales. 

It's more the unnecessary and unjust fees that they keep adding within the day. Reasonable fees would make sense but cancellations charges going into £1000's and name changes going £400 seems extortionate, not many people have that money lying around waiting to be taken. And most of the time, you would expect to be told of these terms or told/warned about the fees rather than springing them on the customer almost like a trap.  They are unable to provide copies of policies or table of charges which I thought would be standard for a company.

More importantly the whole family needs to sit down and workout better ways in dealing travel than keep giving money to companies you dont like or trust. Generally:

1) Book direct with the airline online, then there are no others adding fees/charges etc, no issues of spelling your name correctly etc etc

We usually book online and have never had an issue and will be sticking to that in the future. 

2) Find a good travel agent that you trust and use them

Will not use any again, I feel usually only good until something goes wrong. 

3) Dont get multiple people trying to book the same things at the same time; bite the bullet, pay for roaming and either do it yourself online or use the staff at the airport. 

The internet with roaming was not working through the terminal and the airport refused to help despite there being gate issues. 

jimi_man

Apart from British Airways Holidays who are excellent, I haven’t used a travel agent since Trailfinders in 1990. This and many similar threads are the reason why I never will. 

williscreg

Why don’t you just book your own flights? Honestly, it seems like a lot less hassle compared to going through companies that don’t deliver. But of course, they absolutely need to give you some cash back—that’s just not right what they’re doing. It’s one thing to deal with flight changes or delays, but straight-up not providing the service? That’s unacceptable. I’ve read before about issues with Ticketmaster fraud, but I’ve never heard about other companies pulling something similar on this scale. It’s crazy how these companies think they can get away with this kind of behavior