Deposit withheld

BananaBean156

I believe there was a reschedule option, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do it.

I haven't clarified if the £60 is now a deposit for the "potential" future date, as I was too annoyed this morning to communicate further until I got some info on consumer rights. As I understood the response, Ive lost that £60 and would have to pay another deposit for a future confirmed date. 

BananaBean156

I believe there was a reschedule option, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do it.

I haven't clarified if the £60 is now a deposit for the "potential" future date, as I was too annoyed this morning to communicate further until I got some info on consumer rights. As I understood the response, Ive lost that £60 and would have to pay another deposit for a future confirmed date. 

BananaBean156

Yes, there was a rescheduling option.

I haven't clarified if the deposit is still a deposit for future dates as I was too annoyed this morning. Felt I needed to run the situation past someone. As I read it, the £60 no show taken yesterday was refunded when I sent my rescheduled email back to them, but the £60 deposit is lost because I didn't call to cancel 17 Dec. (Why would I when I rescheduled 6 weeks before my booking)?  I am just on a waiting list at the moment for future requested dates as I haven't been offered one. Dates are released 3 months ahead. Technically I don't have a future date book, just confirmation from their booking system that the 17 December booking has been rescheduled to the preferred dates in April and they will email me when one of those dates becomes available.

BananaBean156

Sorry I have replied three times, hopefully this one won't disappear.

Yes, I was able to reschedule through the booking site using my account. I don't recall, but there must have been something to click on to enable me to do this, and put in dates I preferred.

I have just reread the final email and it states:

"However as it’s a waiting list, you still need to cancel or inform me as I do not get any notifications from you adding to waiting list. 

You still received an appointment reminder on 15th dec regarding your appointment this Wednesday 17th. 

This was your opportunity to contact me. 

I will refund your part payment however I will sadly withhold your non refundable booking fee. "

So she is calling the 50% payment for the appointment a booking fee, and she's sad 🤔

Kim_13

As a deposit is suddenly being called a non-refundable booking fee, it does feel that they are trying to pull a fast one. Some services do have a non-refundable booking fee attached to them, but if that were the case, it would be prominently displayed at the time (and you wouldn't expect to get credit for such a fee against the bill later, given it was a booking fee and not a deposit.) If it had been a non-refundable booking fee then they wouldn't say you could have recovered it by contacting them, because it would have been non-refundable. 

I suspect that unless they clearly state on this booking site that they do not receive notifications from it and that customers will also need to contact them to cancel, their charge is unlawful. However it might take small claims to get it back, and if they later added such a disclaimer to the site, you would have no evidence that it was not there when you rescheduled (unless you do go back onto the system in the interim and collect evidence.)

The court might also take a view on whether it is reasonable for them to expect customers to contact them to cancel in addition to using the online service to reschedule. If the change had simply booked a new appointment rather than replacing the old, they wouldn't have refunded the no show charge as you would still have been a no show. The fact they have refunded that means that there was no appointment for you to show up to.

To my mind if immediate action was required to avoid a charge, they should have sent it by text, not email. We all get many more emails than texts and naturally some are missed, or they might not be checked until the weekend if we are busy. If they had sent a text, you would have had a notification sound to alert you in advance of the original slot having passed. 

You should take screenshots of the current evidence you have before you do anything else, rather than relying on their system records to back up your case.

sheramber

I understand from that that as you did not reschedule to an appointment , they were not aware of the reschedule.

They do not get notified if you reschedule to the waiting list.

You need to ask them where does it say that you must phone to cancel.  

It is a pity you did not notice the email reminder on 15 th December, when you could have clarified the situation with them.

I suppose it depends on how badly you want to use that hairdresser in the future.