They may choose to ignore legal action and yes you have the option of getting baillifs in but they cant ignore the fact that their daughter will have a County Court judgement against her.Try living with that when you are young..not recommended especially when there is an alternative.

any update on this topic as yet. Having a teenage daughter my self i do feel for this young girl and wondered if there was any news!

managed to find out from thomson that the fifty per cent refund should be issued through the branch that took booking, and should take no longer than 14 days.However unless lead name requests the refund goes to my daughter it will go to the lead name.The branch that took booking will not tell us where the money has gone or when as it is now nearly three weeks since the lead names mother confirmed my daughter was cancelled off booking we are now assuming she has our money.Unfortunately they are not answering or returning phone calls.Annoyed with all concerned surely thomson should issue money direct to the person whos money it is as for the lead name Im not even going to go there.Next course of action is now small claims court sorting that out this week.Have been told this last week by someone from a different travel agent that thomson should have had a signature from my daughter agreeing to cancellation does anyone no if this is correct as when i asked thomson this was told the opposite.

in march when our teenage daughter threw a strop and decided she was not coming on holiday ( already paid up for a AI 4* Hotel in Gran Can), we contacted thomsons to see what we could do about it. I removed her name from the booking with no problems at all and they didn't want her signature or consent or anything like that. I don't know if it was different as she was a relative or because we took one of the boy's friends instead, but based on the info you gave us before about thomsons only dealing with the lead name etc, i wouldn't have thought they would have had to have contacted your daughter at all. Also, they would not have had any details for her on file other than her name and possibly date of birth, so they would have been unable to contact her anyway..
this truly is unfortunate for your daughter, i am really annoyed for her and i think basically, this family ( i include the mother in this as she seems not to be concerned about her daughters actions) should have the humiliation of being dragged thorugh court and be forced to pay the money back to your daughter. Why don't you contact the local press and say what has happened but don't mention any names..make the story sound like you are a vicitm of beaurocracy from a tour operator...( i mean in a way you are a vicitm of some silly data protection law)..
keep us updated please..

This all a real mess but I don't think the TO are really to blame - it is a fault of the industry.

Now for all I know the falling out between the girls could have 6 of one half dozen of the other but aside from this, 3 teenage friends booked to go on hol together with one of them as the lead name.

The lead name has cancelled one of the other names without that girls permission.

The TO would say quite correlty that their contract is with the lead name only - any disputes between the lead and others in the party are nothing to do with the TO.

You don't say how you/your daughter paid? If it was a credit card any refund should be made to that card. If it was cash, despite it being handed to the agent directly the cash will have been seen as coming from the lead name - in which case they will get any refund.

By agreeing to go on holiday with these girls and allowing the other girl to make the booking your daughter accepted that her friend was purchasing the holiday - anything she paid her friend in return was a private arrangement.

I'm amazed things like this don't happen more often - maybe TOs should offer specially constructed holidays where the contract is with each invididual - but this would inflate the cost.

thomson should have had a signature from my daughter agreeing to cancellation does anyone no if this is correct as when i asked thomson this was told the opposite.

Has as already been said the contract is with the lead name. That is the system.

The TO is not party to the individual relationships beteween the parties involved.

Whilst in this case there is a falling out there could be other reasons for the cancellation. If for example your daughter was the lead name and cancelled someone because they had not reimbursed her, then she would not be very happy if the TO payed the refund to that person.

fwh

The lead name is the only one that can cancel anyone.

finally managed to speak to lead names mother who went today to thomson with her daughter to find out the delay on the refund apparently the lead name should have signed a form stating that there was no ticket to be issued for my daughter when she cancelled her off the holiday (this was the 23rd may)Apparently the lead name knew nothung about this?.So this is the cause of the delayin refund.I asked her if that meant my daughter would now only get 30% of cost of holiday back instead of the50% she should have got back .Unfortunatlely she did not no.Refund will take 10 days.So this lack of communication between thomson and lead name could be costing my daughter more money.Have got appointment with citizens advice tommorow for info on going to small claims court.

In terms of the agreement between your daughter and the lead name - this is completely seperate to the agreemenet between the lead name and the TO.

Meaning The TO will refund the lead name according to their terms and conditions 30 or 50%.

But it was the lead names decision to cancel the booking that she had made for your daughter.

The lead had an unwritten agreement with your daughter to provide a holiday for the price paid. By canceling that holiday they have broken that agreement and you should pursue the lead name for the full amount paid over.

In this repect it is good that your daughter has no contract with the TO - rather than get 30% she could get 100%

Be careful, if the lead names gives your daughter the full refund (50 or 30%) and your daughter accepts it then this may consitute an agreed settlement. I would not accept any returned money until you have at least drafted a letter to state that the monies passed do not constitute a full settlement and the remainder will persued through the courts.

Dave

It sounds to me more like the lead name went into the travel agent and asked them to cancel your daughter. I understand they were trying to find someone else to take the holiday so at the time of taking this action the travel agent would have told them that they wouldn't cancel the ticket because there was a chance they would just be transferring it to a different name. The onus was on the lead name to get back to the travel agent and tell them whether they had a change of name or required a cancellation.

Definitely go and see CAB because I think your daughter should be pursuing the entire cost of the holiday - 100% from the lead name. She does after all have confirmation in writing of what she has paid.

The travel agent is only doing their job and if everyone paid up separately under separate accounts for their holidays I dread to think the mistakes that could be made with bookings.

just got back from citizen advice ,as we thought our only option now is to go to small claims court have been advised to see how much is refunded from thomson as it now it could be as little as 10%of total holiday cost if there has been a hold up due to lead name not signing form about tickets when she cancelled my daughter off holiday.Have requested small claims pack though have been warned that it could take months before it goes to court.When the lead name cancelled (23rd May)she knew then that no one else wanted to replace my daughter so why form wasnt signed then.I am now wondering if it was deliberate so less money would be recieved as the two girls involved have been very unhelpful .If one good thing has come out of this it is that they are now left with each other as no one wants anything to do with them.Will let you no how much the refund is.

I am going back a few years ago here but a very similar thing happened to me and the tour operator did not want to know I took it through small claims and still ended up with nothing.
I am sorry that this has happened to your daughter I honestly thought that this type of thing would have been stopped by the travel companies a long time ago.

Tracey

Tracey - who did you claim against - the TO?

I think any claim would have to be made against the lead name in order to be successful

Yes it has to be against the lead name.

Finally got a cheque last week for £150 from thomson no explanation of amount letter did say to contact local thomson shop with any queries.However same old comments from shop "can only discuss amount with lead name"When it was explained again to them that lead name will not cooperate with us they were not interested .Have got court papers and set first stage in motion have also written to thomson head office.One of the many questions asked is who protects my daughters holiday money that was paid as all the seem interested in is protecting the lead name.I also want to no why they dont explain that the lead name can cancel anyone off a holiday even when fully paid why is this not explained at time of booking.I look forward to hearing from them and will keep on at them until i get some sort of response.Good newsis that my daughter is looking for another holiday with genuine friends although will not be going through thomson.Spoke to friend of friend who is manageress of another large travel agents and she cant believe thomson local branch have been so unhelpful.

I would like to see the look on the lead name face when she opens the court letter. It does not matter how full of yourself you are that is bound to shake you a bit.

We can only hope they have a horrid holiday, they wont relax and enjoy it because they will spend all their time talking about these events

If Thomson will only deal with the lead name then they should only have accepted payment from the lead name and not your daughter. They cannot have it both ways.

thomsons will accept payment from anyone on a group booking as long as they quote the reference number, however when you pay, you are not able to say " this ££ is off the cost of my share of the holiday" as all they do is take whatever is paid by whoever has paid off the total cost of the holiday. it is up to the lead name to keep tabs on who has paid what and who owes what and it is also their responsibility to ensure that everything is paid up when it should be.

Equally, when anyone makes a payment, if it is not the lead name, thomsons will not tell them any details of the holiday as there is some data protection law or another they would be breaking...

I know this much because these are all questions i asked when booking a group holiday for 11 of us as i would be the lead name and i wanted to be sure of what i was letting myself in for.

I really hope that this matter does get sorted out and that your daughter gets her money back. She has learned an important lesson in life in a very unpleasant way..

Just another law for the travel industry that needs to be altered. Honestly reading some of the scams that they pull off its a miracle that any of us get to have the holidays that we save so hard for.

Still with this forum we are fore warned. Sometimes.