We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.
This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
Booking Direct With Hotel - Section 75
Comments
-
No, if you bought a non-flexible booking with no right of cancellation you cannot claim under a chargeback but then you would also have no CCR rights either so not a legitimate parallel. The devil is always in the precise detail.
0 -
I think you may be misunderstanding my point, which was effectively to compare OP's (anticipated) situation of cancelling a flexible booking with cancelling of a contract where CCRs do apply, and highlighting that it's often mentioned that chargeback doesn't apply to the latter, so the same argument would presumably apply to the former, if in each case the retailer was refusing to refund.
1 -
Yes, it doesnt create a new right but does enable you to get money back in certain circumstances where you are entitled to it. Per my first comment, particularly when they acknowledge it is due and despite that and many chasers the cash still hasn't turned up.
0 -
There isn't for change of mind, OP mentioned flexible booking. Which may have refund options 🤷♀️
Life in the slow lane0 -
Yes, but, as with my previous post further up this page, I was querying whether there's any meaningful difference (from a chargeback perspective) between a hotelier refusing to refund a (customer-)cancelled flexible booking and a retailer refusing to honour a refund due after a change of mind under CCRs?
0 -
I get what you are saying here.
Sadly retailer not refunding is not covered in card regs when customer changes their mind, even though they should have a refund in certain circumstances.
Life in the slow lane0 -
Apologies, I missed the OP’s comment that Tripla is named on the statement. If Tripla appears as the payee, it can suggest they were the receiver of the funds, which could break the DCS chain. I am assuming CC providers tend to rely on the statement as evidence to determine if there is a break in the chain because under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, a "payee" on a statement is defined as the intended recipient of the funds in connection with a transaction. So if Tripla is the named payee, it's reasonable to presume they are the recipient.
However, as I've been thinking about it further and without getting to deep into the technical side of things, the name shown on a statement comes from what is known as the billing descriptor, which is the text used to identify the transaction and is configured on the backend. If the descriptor is configured incorrectly, the wrong name can appear on the statement. In most cases, the descriptor is set to the merchant’s name so customers recognise the transaction, unless you have an intermediary arrangement and then it will typically be the intermediary name as opposed to the merchant.
If there's evidence Tripla is only facilitating the payment, then notiwthstanding them being named on the statement, the DCS chain is likely to be unbroken.
I'm not familiar witth SumUp/Zettle article, do you have a link to that?
The issue of PayPal has been long standing though and as far as I know it still breaks S75 if you pay after logging into your account despite the fact that your statement will name both PayPal and the merchant.
I agree, and that position still remains valid in law. If you log in to PayPal to make a payment, there are two transactions. You pay PayPal, and PayPal then pays the merchant so this breaks the payment chain.
If you use PayPal’s guest checkout instead, PayPal simply processes the payment and the chain is not broken. As far as I'm aware, PayPal has confirmed this distinction publicly in the past. Also, I am not sure whether there is an option in which you can log into PayPal and use them as a payment processor only but if there was and there's evidence to support that position, you should still be covered under s75.
I doubt the FOS would consider if it went through Tripla's bank account or not as a material consideration as clearly there is no way a consumer will know and would have no right to find out.
Under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, If the statement shows the wrong payee, you can challenge it. The credit card provider bears the burden of proof to show that the information on the statement is correct, and the CC provider would need to review the transactional information to determine where the funds actually ended up. It is therefore important to understand whether the payment first went to Tripla before being passed to the merchant. If it did, this could mean that Tripla acted as an intermediary in the transaction.
0 -
But again the FOS isnt bound to come to the same conclusion as a court would, they are legally bound to find a "fair" outcome. Hence we commonly get statements like the below at the start of the Ombudsman's decisions:
My role isn’t to decide whether BMI is liable under S75. Instead, I’m required to decide what’s fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the case.
As previously linked to, there was one case where someone paid a business in person, when a S75 claim was made it was rejected by the bank because the payment was made literally to the neighbouring business. In the investigation the merchant clarified their card machine had broken and their neighbour had lent them theirs until they could get a replacement. The FOS acknowledged that strictly the D-C-S chain had been broken as payment was to a company other than the supplier but upheld the complaint given the customer/debtor had not been made aware and had no reason to suspect they weren't paying the supplier.
0 -
Putting aside the discussion about the distinction between the legal situation and FOS determinations, are you effectively suggesting that OP has no particularly viable mechanism to ascertain if their transaction would fall within s75 scope (prior to making any claim), in that they'd need to establish the nature of the relationship between Tripla and the supplier, either by querying either company or by challenging the use of the fourth party's name on their CC statement (at this stage?), neither of which seems realistic?
0 -
You're absolutely correct, the FOS isn't strictly bound by the legal principles that the courts are bound by, but they are legally required to take the law into account as part of that decision. That extends codes of practice and other industry standards.
The courts have previously stated that if the Ombudsman decides to deviate from the relevant law, then they need to be prepared to explain why that is the case, albeit a detailed explanation is not required. In fact, there was a Court of Appeal case late last year where the court found that the Ombudsman failed to discharge that obligation by not only failing to accurately take the relevant law into account as part of their decision and also explain why the Ombudsman had decided to depart from the law - the Ombudsman's decision was quashed.
Every case may have their own nuances and special circumstances such as the one you mentioned, which enables the Ombudsman to do what is right if the customer has unfairly or unreasonably suffered through no fault of their own. But to be clear, the Ombudsman cannot just brush the law aside without explaining why.
0
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 354.5K Banking & Borrowing
- 254.4K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 455.4K Spending & Discounts
- 247.4K Work, Benefits & Business
- 604.2K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 178.5K Life & Family
- 261.7K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.7K Read-Only Boards