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'I'm still £460 out of pocket by Alpharooms and Teletext Holidays - what's going on?'
Ritchie Harold
I was due to go to Portugal in September 2020 and had a hotel booked with Alpharooms - but it was later cancelled due to coronavirus restrictions.
The company said they would only offer me back a credit note to be used within a year which I tried to fight but I didn’t really get anywhere, so I accepted it.
I used the credit note to book another hotel for a visit to Malta in November 2021. I paid Alpharooms another £212 on top of the £198 I’d already spent. A week later they told me the booking had been cancelled.
I had to spend £400 on a replacement hotel stay but thought I’d get my money back from the previous Alpharooms cancellations.
After dozens of phone calls and emails, they then told me my £186 refund will be paid to Elizabeth Smith’s account. I don’t know anyone called Elizabeth.
The customer services advisor from Truly Travel Holdings then laughed at me – even after I explained how stressful the situation was. From reading comments on a Facebook Group, it seems that the staff working for TTA really don’t care.
I’m out of pocket £460 but there are some people on the group there are owed £6,000.
I’ve filed two claims on my bank for chargeback which they contested.
What should I do?
Ritchie Harold
Mirror Money's response
Truly Travel Holdings (TTH), the parent company behind Teletext Holidays and Alpharooms, went into liquidation last Christmas, affecting tens of thousands of customer bookings.
It came shortly after the Competition and Markets Authority threatened to take legal action against the firm for failing - and in some cases refusing - to pay cash refunds to people whose holidays were cancelled due to covid - despite this being their legal right.
Figures seen on October 19 showed the company still owed customers £1.2million in refunds.
Until that point the company said all bookings would be financially protected under its Travel Trust Association (TTA) licence - however this was later revoked.
In the end, the company collapsed in December and liquidators were hired.
TTNG chief executive Gary Lewis said Truly Travel, “like many travel businesses”, had been “severely impacted” by the pandemic.
Truly Travel’s sister company Alpha Holidays, which traded as Alpharooms.com and was bought by the group in 2013, also had its TTA membership terminated.
No accommodation-only bookings have been fulfilled since October 25 – including yours, Ritchie.
When a company goes into liquidation, anyone owed money goes into a long list of ‘creditors’.
This is basically all the people the company owes money to. TTH have confirmed to me that refunds will now be processed in date order. Unfortunately some people, for example banks, will get paid first, so you might not get anything.
The law says when company folds, it has a 12 month window to review any claims made by customers.
If you are owed money by Alpharooms, the first thing to do is file a refund request online. If you live in Ireland, you have to file a separate form and the deadline for this is April 30, 2022.
You've done this, multiple times, yet the company has failed to pay out.
The next step is to go to your bank. If you paid on a debit card, you can make a request through your bank - which again, you have done.
The chargeback scheme effectively reverses the transaction, putting the money back in your account.
Chargeback is not enshrined in law but most banks are part of it - the only issue is you only have 120 days to file this request so time is running out if you, like Ritchie, are owed money from when Alpharooms collapsed last year.
For credit card transactions over £100 you also have rights under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. Under the scheme, your card issuer is jointly responsible for any losses, so for those who paid on a credit card, it’s worth putting a claim in as soon as you can.
A TTH spokeswoman told me customers are being contacted in date of departure order.
In your case, Ritchie, if the company keeps contesting your chargeback requests and your bank has given up, you can actually take your bank to the Financial Ombudsman for failing to look after your money.
First of all, you have to file a complaint. If you don’t get a response within eight weeks or the response is unsatisfactory to you, you can take it to the Ombudsman.
As your bank, they should be asking why this business is refusing to refund you when it hasn’t provided a service.
A spokeswoman from TTH told me: “Since the liquidation of Truly Travel and Alpha Holidays on 1 st December 2021, our team has received thousands of claim submissions for both failed companies.
“The volume and complexity due to many of these bookings being moved through the Refund Credit Note process - sometimes up to 3 times - has added to the resource and time required to validate, remove duplications and identify potential fraudulent claims.
“Our team is currently working through all the submissions and we are contacting customers on a weekly basis, to update them of the progress made by the team.”
Disclaimer
Money Troubles aims to be informative and engaging. Though it may include tips and information, it does not constitute advice and should not be used as a basis for any financial decisions.
All information in this post was correct at date of publication.
