As you haven't signed anything I am not sure re a telephone booking. However, to clarify the matter completely, contact Ros Fernihough, Solicitor, on the following number 01922 621114 before ringing Instant Holidays. Her advice is free.

Let us know how you get on

Kath HT Admin

I booked with Mytravel on the Internet and paid only £30 online for the low deposit, they said I had 8 weeks to pay the full deposit which was £110.

I had to cancel 4 days later so I rang them and because they hadn't yet sent out the confirmation invoice out to me in the post I would only lose my £30, if I had already recieved my invoice in the post they would have charged me £110 to cancel, so I was lucky.

I think it depends whether you've recieved your invoice and how long after the booking you actually cancelled,
I'd definately seek some proffessional advice as this seems a lot of money to lose,
sam x

every tour operator will tell you in the brochure the deposit you have to pay, first choice shop act as an agent therefore its their decision to offer you a low deposit and a date to which you have to pay the remainder of the deposit, its really the same as when you buy a car you pay a deposit to secure the car then pay the agent pays full costings and you owe the agent money if this makes sense

with all low deposit or financial agree ments they have to state clearly what is happening and when the remainders will be due, YOU WOULD ALSO HAVE TO SIGN AN OFFICIAL AGGREEMENT to say you aggreed on low dep and due date if you havent signed this, rightfully speaking you can argue your case unless they have backing by recorded telephone conversations that says they did tell you

honestly oyu are liable to pay the rest of deposit if you signed the paper work, but if you havent signed any thing they havent got a leg to stand on,

ask them to show you the paper worked which ' you agreed a low dep' if they cant dont pay,

I've been keeping a watch over this site to see if someone is in the same situation as me and mine is very similar.

Booked a holiday by phone (12 weeks before travel date). Paid £600 deposit (4 adults) by credit card. We were unsure at the time about booking but sales people were very convincing that we should do it 'or you could miss-out'. Anyway... we wanted to look into insurance ourselves (fathers condition) - due to worldwide cover being required, his condition and where we are going in the light of day would not be suitable.

We were under the impression that we had three days to confirm by phone (but that would seem was for them to call us to confirm all is ok).

So the day after booking (sunday) called to say the holiday was not suitable and then we had the....'you've got to send in a recorded delivery letter to cancel'. So this is what I did.

Many calls later to their customer services people only today after four weeks I get the answer that we will lose the deposit, unless we have insurance, which we could claimed against.

We never got the confirmation phone call from them, we never took out any insurance and we received no paperwork until a few days ago (the final invoice) and the big point is that we felt we could 'change' our minds if we wanted to.

It makes me mad to think we could lose £600. They won't even transfer the holiday deposit to a different operator for a different destination.

So I'm in a situation of what to do now - fight for the monies back (or part of it - compromise) or put it down to experience.

Having looked on consumer sites it would seem that we are not covered for cooling off periods, but I reasonably think that due to the quick response to change of decision and the time they have to sell the holiday it's bad that we have to pay a substantial amount. In any other situation deposits are generally refundable. Its not as though they have incurred much cost - a bit of admin.

StratApproach

I think this is very much a "ok, PROVE IT" situation. Let them PROVE where you agreed to the 'low initial deposit' condItions. Oh, can't they? job done!

I work in an industry where we are hidebound by a huge rule book...but, in essence, the rule book boils down to "if it isn't on paper it didn't happen".

So stick to your guns......my gut feeling is the agent has ticked all the boxes their end and are scared they may lose out, but if they didn't spell it you to you.........

HARD CHEDDAR

StratApproach

As you paid by Credit Card, you have certain rights

Under section 75, of the consumer credit act, your card issuer is also liable for this amount

Contact your card issuer; ask them to raise a dispute on your account, regarding this company, and amount.

On the form you receive from your issuer, your reason for raising a dispute, you believe you were miss sold a product.

This firstly prevents the Company from obtaining your money, your issuer will send you a letter, requesting details of why you are raising a dispute, you will need to complete the form, and send all relevant details relating to your case, for example, contact the insurance company, ask them, do they have any details to confirm you made enquiries on that particular day, get them to send you a copy, forward this on with your dispute letter.

If you are unable to obtain any details from the insurance company, if you have an itemised telephone bill, this will confirm the order in which you called the Companies and the time you called them, for example, the holiday company's number would be 1st, on the bill followed by the insurance companies number, as you said, you needed to make enquiries about the insurance before booking the holiday.

Who knows, this company may have a chequered history.

Do you know the area where this company is located? If so, find the telephone number for trading standards in that area, then contact trading standards, ask, do they have any complaints against this company, again, if positive feedback, submit this information with your dispute letter.

When you submit all your correspondence, this should prove you are correct, it's then up to the Company you dealt with, to prove your facts are incorrect.

It's time consuming getting your dispute resolved, BUT WELL WORTH THE EFFORT.

Keep us informed.

Good luck

Driver02

When I was a TA and we offered this type of promotion we had to have the customer come into the branch to take up this offer, we couldn't let them book over the phone because they needed to sign a low deposit form agreeing to pay the whole deposit even if they needed to cancel.

You do not have to pay the full amount if you have not signed a low deposit form and they do not have a leg to stand on to try and make you pay. Also the company that you have booked with can still cancel your booking and refund your deposit if they had to because they have not issued you with a confirmation invoice, until you receive that invoice from them in the tour operators eyes the holiday has not been confirmed so from their point they can cancel your hol with no compensation to you, as someone from this board found out. Obviously the chance of you being able to do the same is nil, but at least you should only lose the £99. I really cannot see how they can make you pay the full deposit.

They will try and pressure you into paying the deposit as the travel agent actually has to pay the full deposit to the tour op, so they aren't going to want to write that off. When I was a TA we always had a couple of customer defaulting on their low deposit bookings, but we always made sure that we had them sign an agreement beforehand. In this case you didn't sign one, that's their mistake and unfortunately they are going to have deal with it!

If the Holiday was booked in a First Choice Travel shop then the confirmation invoice would have been processed immediately as invoices are now done in-store. As this was a phone booking the agent could state a "verbal contract" when you agreed to the booking of the holiday. You may still find yourself subject to the T&C's in the back of the brochure.

Verbal contracts are on very dodgy ground surely if the telephone conversation has not been taped. They cannot prove that the customer was told about the low deposit by the agent involved.

it dosent matter what was really said by phone as this was only a 2 way conversation and the call wasnt recorded, basically its your worl=rd against the travel agent

normally what ever is discussed by phone eg low deposit terms and conditions must be backed in writting to prove what you have agreed to avoid issues like theese therefore i wouldnt give up any more money and cancel the card to avoid any further payment being attempted to be taken
you dont know that you can trust them with your details

courtney

Without wishing to suggest in any way that you are not telling the truth I do find it very difficult to believe that you were not told. These types of booking have a script as with other types of transactions. A few days ago I had an insurance quote - when I rang back to accept the offer I was read the terms and conditions again. The reason was that whilst I had a reference no I was talking to another operator. She apologised but told me she was obliged to read them to me again. If you ring and make a booking in my experience then you have to go through the terms/conditions. I do think that people do not listen to what they are being told as they have other things on their minds. After all they are booking a holiday so there cannot be a problem!

fwh

Thats very true FWH,

A few years ago I booked a holiday with Airtours for a £10.00 deposit on the phone, and the TA went through the T&C's with me.

I didnt reallly listen as hard as I should have done, but they definately did go through them with me on the phone.

Velcro, any update on this?

most people can be dreaming of other things when t & c are being explained, but surely when some one starts saying you have to pay a remainder of a deposit how much and when its due you stop dreaming and ask questions wouldnt you

Thanks for the many replies - have been busy over the Easter period so have only just managed to read them all.

Anyway to try and address some of the points made:-
Although the booking was done over the telephone, it was done directly with an advisor (agent or whatever they are called) my wife had originally spoken to during a visit to a First Choice shop, not with the First Choice telephone booking service (call centre). This is important as I don't believe these shop calls are recorded unlike the ones to the actual telephone booking service - this also means that a "scripted conversation" did not take place as was suggested in one of the posts. Despite asking numerous times and sending a number of emails, nobody from First choice has been able to confirm the conversation was actually recorded.

The booking was paid for with a debit card not credit card (Doh !!) so unfortunatly I cannot take advantage of the services that come with a credit card - however that was a good shout and I will remember this next time.

The whole booking was carried out over the phone and no paperwork was ever signed - this is a big advantage in my case. It was literally a day or two after we made the original booking that I stumbled across the cheaper price, so asked First Choice to price match prior to getting any booking confirmation, which again I think works in my favour.

Some posts mentioned about the booking terms & conditions being in the brochures and therefore possibly being a disadvantage to me. However I have not been able to find any reference whatsoever to "Low Deposit" bookings. If anyone is able to point this out I would love to know where it says this and what it says. Personally I think they are termed incorrectly and should be renamed to something like "part-deposit" which leaves you in no uncertain terms that you still have additional deposit to pay. We were simply told we were paying a low deposit, we were not told we were only paying part of the deposit.

I have since contacted my home insurance people as I have legal cover as part of the insurance. If anyone else is having simillar problems I would recommend they do the same as it is not just for legal issues to do with your home but it covers a multitude of things. We asked our insurance people if we could use the service in relation to our First Choice issue and explained the problem to them. They said it sounds as though we are covered for this issue, but they have sent us a form to fill in the details of the problem so they can confirm we can get the relevant help.

In principle they said that we have a very good case and that we should have no problem getting the issue resolved in our favour. If First Choice proceed with legal action it will go to a small claims court and in the event that we were to lose then we would obviously have to pay the deposit remainder and legal costs (approx £200 was quoted) but there would be no financial "black mark" against my name as long as we paid, which was one of the concerns I had.

Talking to a number of different people and the information in some of the posts here, it seems I have a very strong case and should be successful in winning it. Following advice, I will be simply waiting now to see what action occurs, I have only about a week left to pay "whats owed". Some sources are suggesting that nothing will happen as there is no signed paperwork and there does not appear to be taped evidence. But if I get a follow up letter then hopefully I can use the legal service on my home insurance. Either way I will post the outcome once it has been resolved.

Thanks to everyone for their words and advice.

thanks for the update and the very best of luck in pursuing this, please keep letting us know the outcome I am there are lots of people like me rooting for you
Shorty

Yes, thanks for the update......good luck

Kath HT Admin

Good luck with our case i hope that you are able to resolve this without losing any money, but one thing i think you should know is that a first choice shop does have a script when it comes to a llow deposit and lso they have a computar that they have to record details of the conversation they had with yu, kind of like a personal file. You are entilited to see this file legally if you need to. Im not sure whether this will help or hinder you but i thought you shoud know, and yes a couple of years ago i did work in one of there shops thats how i kno there system. They are meticulous about what you mst say and do when making a booking over the phone with a customer and following that a copy of the printouts are sent to the client to read and sign and in this is a low deposit agreement that is gone through at the time of booking.

you may have not received the agreement but they will have records of the conversation. doesnt matter if call cente or shop.

Tokmak - an actual tape recording of the conversation is a lot different than someone typing up their conversation. A typed up version is easily disputed as there is no proof that the conversation actually took place, it's the advisors word against the customers.