KATIE MORLEY INVESTIGATES

CONSUMER CHAMPION OF THE YEAR If a company has let you down, Katie is here to fight your corner

LETTER OF THE WEEK My fiancé dumped me and left me with £8k hotel bill

My fiancé and I were due to get married in October 2019. The previous March I paid a £1,000 deposit to book the grand ballroom at the Chateau Impney hotel, Worcestershire, at a total cost of £10,500. Five weeks later my fiancé decided to call off the wedding. He didn’t even give a reason. He left me in a terrible financial mess.

I informed the hotel that the wedding was off and it advised me that I was still bound by the contract. Because the booking was in my name, I was still liable to pay 75pc of the total cost, which was £7,875, it said. When I cancelled, I was three weeks outside the initial 14-day cooling-off period during which I would have received a full refund. The only service I’ve had for my £7,875 is one day with a wedding coordinator.

I couldn’t believe I was suddenly single and on the hook for this huge bill. I was so upset. Thankfully my ex eventually gave me £3,937 to pay half the bill. With my £1,000 deposit it means the hotel has now received £4,937. However, it is still expecting a further £2,937.

Following my cancellation, the hotel had 24 weeks left before the wedding day to sell the Grand Ballroom. It told me it wasn’t able to fill it, but when I checked the website’s “late availability” page it had a date available in September and November, but not October. I told the hotel I would not be paying it any more money. Its response was to threaten me, saying it would get its legal team to recover the remaining fee.

I am desperately in need of some help as I have already lost a lot of money to other wedding items, including a £1,000 deposit for my wedding dress, an upfront payment of £1,000 for the catering and £500 for bridal hair and make-up.

I have been suffering at work because of the distress this whole situation has caused me and I have been referred for counselling to get additional support.

It is every woman’s dream to get married and I never thought I’d have to cancel mine. I’m devastated that I’ve been left in this situation.

ANON

I’m so sorry you were let down like this. Being a bride-to-be is an exciting whirlwind, but you had your fairytale wedding blown apart without warning. You were left crushed.

It was also painful for your bank balance. Weddings are an extortionate business and you have lost a lot of money. I’m afraid imposing cancellation charges is necessary for wedding suppliers to

Katie Morley, Telegraph Money, The Daily Telegraph, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT

Please do not send original documents. Include an address, phone number and separate notes addressed to all organisations authorising them to talk to Katie. For full terms see p3 or visit telegraph.co.uk/go/ consumerchampion. You can also email kminvestigates@ telegraph.co.uk ensure their survival, as they need to be able to protect themselves from losses caused when customers change their minds.

That said, under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 they are prohibited from using them as a way to profit at the expense of the customer. To me, it is not clear that this £7,875 cancellation charge reflected the losses the hotel suffered as a result of your cancellation.

It is my understanding that the Grand Ballroom can be booked for weddings as far as two years in advance. As far as I know, it went unbooked for the date in question until six months beforehand, when you snapped it up. You only reserved it for five weeks, or one month out of a possible 24, during which time it was off the market to other couples. I therefore find it ludicrous that you are being charged 75pc of the total price for a wedding venue you never used. What about the other 23 months during which Chateau

Impney failed to sell the ballroom?

It hadn’t bought any food, drink or decorations, and the only service you’d had was a day with the wedding planner. All you had paid for was the space. So how could it possibly claim you caused it £7,875 of losses?

I asked Chateau Impney for a pounds and pence breakdown of the losses you caused it, which it failed to provide. It stood by its contract, which it said was “fair”. It said that the closer wedding dates got, the harder it became to sell available suites. As the five-week reservation fell in the crucial “late booking” period, it claimed this disproportionately affected its ability to sell the ballroom.

But what about the screenshot that you claim shows your date as unavailable as a late booking? Chateau Impney said you must have taken it after the wedding date. You have assured me that it was taken before your wedding date. If it was, it could mean Chateau Impney

For my sister’s 16th birthday in February last year I decided to splash out and buy her a £100 Ryanair gift voucher. I’m a student at Edinburgh University and we rarely get a chance to see each other, so I thought she could use it to visit me.

When I ordered it online I saw an error code that said the purchase had failed. So I tried again. I received two £100 gift cards, for which I was billed £204, including admin. I would love to give both to my sister, but as a poor student I can’t afford it.

I tried to complain via email six times, but after nearly a year I have not managed to get a useful response. I have also tried Ryanair’s customer service phone line, which just repeats that gift vouchers are non-refundable. To Ryanair, £102 is a pittance. But it would take me more than 13 hours to earn that amount doing my current jobs.

Ryanair is refusing refund for rogue gift voucher

DC, EDINBURGH

The solution to this problem was so simple and it shouldn’t have taken my involvement to get Ryanair to fix it. For nearly a year you tried and failed to get a refund. You did nothing wrong. Yet when I had a word, Ryanair immediately pressed the refund button.

Ryanair should have been honoured you chose it as your sister’s birthday treat. It said it “regrets” any inconvenience it has caused you. It has now voided the voucher and refunded your £102. That it hasn’t offered a goodwill gesture for leaving you out of pocket for a year feels mean, but is no surprise, given the airline’s no-frills approach. As long as its flights are cheap, it knows customers will be back.

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