Is this a breach of banking guidelines?

[findingaway]

Hi ;Hi

Not sure whether anyone will know the answer to this.

I've booked a large family hol for next yr for 20 people through a group booking. The invoices we received were done under 3 different reference no's, as the most allowed on 1 booking was 9. All low £50 deposits were pd at the time by telephone by 1 debit card, mine. The subsequent rest of deposit £100 each was pd by the individual families. On 12/9 one of the family's went on-line to pay his £390 that he owed, but missed a box that had the full amount entered & they took over £3600 from him which emptied his business acct which was money received to complete a contract!

He rang the company the day after (13/9) & they said it was no prob & they would refund the difference (3220) stating it would be in his bank Wed at the earliest Fri at the latest. Fri he rang when no money in to be told it only was refunded Tues, so would be in his acct Mon/Tues at the latest!! It's caused him major problems & he's had to borrow money to get through last week. Yesterday after demanding some answers he was told the payment had been made last wk & he was put through to credit mgmt. They said yes the money had been refunded to card ending xxxx, but it wasn't his card! On checking it was mine! So I went online banking, no money in. He rang them back & was told they'd ring the bank. Turns out their bank had the payment on hold due to irregularities (pd by 1 refunded to another & different people etc)

Been on phone nearly all day today, getting nowhere - they say they re-issued the refund to the correct card yesterday & it's left their acct at midnight last night - his bank have nothing pending showing today, god only knows when it'll land in his acct. Spoke to the "manager of direct hols" that's a laugh no-one I can speak to higher apparently. I've eventually got a head office number from going back to customer relations, but ho were closed by that time.

Question is, legally where do we stand with the 1st refund going to the incorrect card? Anywhere?

Look forward to a reply from you knowledgeable people!!

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Is this a breach of banking guidelines?

The system of ePDQ is quite weird in that all refunds MUST go back to the original card with the only exception being if that card is no longer in existence, in which case the back office system of PDQ would allow them to refund to another card. As the amount runs into thousands, as part of the merchant security (i.e. natwest streamline or barclays epdq or hsbc processing) the system will flag the refund as an error. Therefore it will sit in limbo until the merchant and the merchant processor sort things out.

Basically the processor (bank) has done nothing wrong, it is whoever you booked the trip with that is at fault and you can sue for consequential damages if they have caused you hardship and/or loss in any way as a result of their breach.

All they need to do is authorise their bank to release the funds to the card, your bank will refuse it because you never paid that amount so why would you receive a refund - therefore it'd end up in the processor (banks) holding account, before being sent back to the merchant a day or so later (it is all automated).

The merchant (tour operator) NEEDS to speak to their bank and then refund to the correct card that paid the wrong funds. The other option would have been for 10 of you to pay that person the amount back, i.e. if there are 20 of you paying £300+ each he'd easily get his money back if the people that had not paid, simply paid him instead of the holiday!

make sense>

Stop wasting time on the phone to them, get hold of a manager and demand they sort it prior to you seeking legal advice - may be worth writing to the tour operator head office - although something tells me this isn't a main operator like thomson/thomas cook - or is it? lol

[findingaway]

Re: Is this a breach of banking guidelines?

Hi, yes that's exactly what happened, their bank HSBC had it in a hold acct. It was finally refunded to the correct bank on the 24th. It was just so worrying & I found it unbeleivable that the same 5 day process had to be undertaken AFTER we pointed out their mistake! But they wouldn't do a "fast payment" which my son's bank said would have been in his acct immediately. All the others had already paid but my son-in law lent him £1000 to buy his materials. It really affected his business though cos he said he couldn't concentrate & was forever checking his bank account. He is going to complain, just wondered if anyone had any pointers especially as they tried to repay another account! They just fobbed that off!! It was Direct Holidays. TIA

[Never-In-Doubt]

Re: Is this a breach of banking guidelines?

Hiya

Haha - how strange that there are so many similarities in my example to the real cause! I never realised it took 2 weeks to respond, sorry! That's shoddy service, but don't sue me hehe

You don't have much to claim other than ex-gratia compo to be fair... worth a go, use the Direct Holidays complaint forum: ---> http://www.directholidays.co.uk/legal-n ... ions/#tc28

I am surprised that this is Direct Holidays (i.e. Thomas Cook)..... but then mistakes can happen to the biggest and best companies.