Firm won’t dig up a refund for my Pompeii trip
Ms B.C. writes: In 2019, I booked and paid for a specialist archaeological holiday with Andante Travels to Pompeii. It was due to depart last April but was cancelled due to the pandemic. Andante agreed to a full refund of £2,186, but six weeks later it withdrew the offer and would only give me a voucher for future travel, with the possibility of a cash refund by the end of February this year.
I HAVE received many hundreds of complaints from readers who have been fighting to get refunds from travel companies and airlines, but what made your battle stand out was the threat you received from Andante Travels when you rejected the offer of an IOU and said you would complain to the Competition and Markets Authority, which had issued guidance on customers’ rights.
Although you had not mentioned court action, Andante’s boss Jackie Willis told you: ‘If you were to obtain a court judgment, we would find ourselves unable to make the payment.’
It appears that Andante would resist any attempt to enforce a court judgment – and Willis added: ‘We will seek expenses from you on a full indemnity basis in any action taken by you.’
In a nutshell then, Andante admitted owing you money, told you it could not pay it, but threatened to land you with a bill for its own legal costs if you sued to get your money back.
And this was after you had actually been quite sympathetic, telling Andante you really did understand the problems of the travel industry during the pandemic, but explaining that for just the same reasons, you were unable to work and were in financial difficulties.
An IOU promising payment months into the future is not something you can use to pay your mortgage, or your rent, or to put food on the table.
Faced with Andante’s threats, you asked your bank, Santander, to use the chargeback system to snatch back your £2,186. This worked, and the money appeared in your account, but at the beginning of December it disappeared after Andante appealed.
By then, you had just £350 in your account, so when £2,186 vanished you were pushed into overdraft. Your routine direct debits were not paid, you could not draw cash and you were hit with bank charges. All because Andante had your money instead of you.
I asked Santander to see what it could do to help, and remarkably it quickly went even further than I had hoped, offering to scrap all the charges and put more than £2,000 of the bank’s money into your account to tide you over until Andante finally repaid you. And this is what has happened, putting your account back into credit at Santander’s expense.
But what about Andante Travels? It told me it regarded the chargeback situation and your overdraft as ‘a private matter between the bank and the customer’, neatly ignoring the fact that Andante caused the problem in the first place.
And it admitted that it was struggling. Although it is taking bookings for future holidays, Andante told me it was currently unable to operate those holidays. It added: ‘This has potentially serious consequences for the financial position of the company.’
Its IOUs were guaranteed under the Air Transport Operators Licence scheme, so were sure to pay out eventually, but repaying all its customers right away ‘would risk the insolvency of an otherwise viable business’.
In normal times, this might well mean that Andante and its bosses were guilty of the offence of wrongful trading by continuing in business while unable to pay its debts. But this bit of law has been suspended by the Government for the moment.
However, last Wednesday, Andante suddenly told me: ‘Ms C’s refund cheque will be sent on Monday, January 25, in line with all of our previous communications with this guest.’
This, of course, is false. What it had told you and other customers was that you could use the IOU to book a new trip, failing which it would offer cash by the end of February, not January. Panic at Andante? Who knows, but do tell me if the cheque fails to arrive.