Being asked to agree to waive rights to a charge back - is this legal/enforecable

LavenderLouise

Is it legal and enforceable if you are asked to sign an agreement that you will not request a chargeback on a booking for services?

I have just paid on my credit card for holiday accomodation next year. The company I booked with use a third party: "When booking with us your stay will be protected by a Deposit Guarantee, Guest Guarantee and public liability provided by our risk management partner, SUPERHOG. To benefit from this protection you will be contacted by SUPERH0G directly to verify yourself." (from their website). Part of the Superhog agreement is not to raise a chargeback, which is raising red flags with me in the case of the host goes out of business in the meantime (it's an expensive booking for a special occasion). I had no idea that I was going to be asked to sign such an agreement when I made the booking (which is non-refundable). 

Has anyone else had experience of this? I am in the process of checking with my credit card provider what their attitude would be to it.

DE_612183

I think they can ask you to sign, and you can sign - I very much doubt it's enforceable by law.

Say you lose money and invoke a charge back, the supplier has 90 days ( I think ) to dispute the charge back, but I doubt the bank would accept a non-charge back contract - after all you cannot override the law

eskbanker

What's the contractual relationship you'd have with Superhog, i.e. are they simply providing some sort of insurance-like protection to the party through whom you're actually booking, which wouldn't affect your ability to raise a chargeback against that party?

LavenderLouise

esbanker - tbh I have no idea. The only information I have is that in the quote in the post. It's the company who act as agent for the property who use Superhog. Barclaycard can't help with saying if they view any agreement as legally binding.

LavenderLouise

DE_612183 said:

I think they can ask you to sign, and you can sign - I very much doubt it's enforceable by law.

Say you lose money and invoke a charge back, the supplier has 90 days ( I think ) to dispute the charge back, but I doubt the bank would accept a non-charge back contract - after all you cannot override the law

That's what I am hoping, but not being a legal expert, it's got me concerned. Thank you

eskbanker

LavenderLouise said:

esbanker - tbh I have no idea. The only information I have is that in the quote in the post. It's the company who act as agent for the property who use Superhog. Barclaycard can't help with saying if they view any agreement as legally binding.

So you've entered into a binding contractual agreement with a company and then, after making that booking, you're being asked to sign an additional agreement with another party, which wasn't referenced in the pre-contract documentation (or in the primary Ts & Cs) and hasn't been explained to you?  What happens if you don't sign?

Olinda99

If you are paying by credit card as you say then another option to a chargeback is a section 75 so even if they stopped you doing the charge back you have that option

daveyjp

Having looked at the Superhog website it looks and reads like an A level student project built using ChatGPT.

https://superhog.com/

Two quotes endorsing the service have exactly the same wording, but are supposedly from different users.  May be a mix up, but it doesn't look good.

DullGreyGuy

daveyjp said:

Having looked at the Superhog website it looks and reads like an A level student project built using ChatGPT.

https://superhog.com/

Two quotes endorsing the service have exactly the same wording, but are supposedly from different users.  May be a mix up, but it doesn't look good.

They also quote the wrong company number in their privacy policy

Their sister company is however FCA regulated as an intermediary for selling insurance so at least part of the business in principle has gone through reasonable vetting. 

eskbanker

Olinda99 said:

If you are paying by credit card as you say then another option to a chargeback is a section 75 so even if they stopped you doing the charge back you have that option

OP says that she booked with a "company who act as agent for the property", which suggests a multi-party arrangement that's likely to scupper the prospects of a s75 claim by virtue of a broken debtor-creditor-supplier chain.

Olinda99

yes agree and also scupper a chargeback irrespective of a 'waiver"?