So in theory legally, can't perform a further transaction for the balance. Data Privacy.

Unless you give them permission to do this and ticking the box on a website confirming that you have read the T&Cs very often does give them the required permission. The same thing happens with hotel reservations when they ask you for your card details on arrival or with car hire and the like. Yes, they can't keep this sort of information without your permission but if you give it then they can do exactly what happened in this instance. You really do need to check the T&Cs and not just 'tick' or sign without checking this.

As it's turned out, Lowcostholidays have done the decent thing, so well done them, and I hope that Meach's wife makes a good recovery but I think that the rest of us need to take heed and make sure that we really do read the small print before ticking or signing away our possible rights.

SM

lowcostholidays.com booked in July 10 , they took money twice

refund promised but since refused.

Goods never supplied

only option legal route ?

have tried HSBC but they say as debit card used online , no case for chargeback ??

any advice / experience

lowcostholidays.com - beware -

i want to complaint about LOW COST HOLIDAYS.
Do not use them, if there is a problem they don;t want to give you back your money. Every week for over a year i have been trying to get back over a thousand pounds and they just will not give it back to me. They agree they owe it to me, thats not the problem, the problem is getting the money back! There is just no help out there at all. ABTA - no help at all. Don't want to be, what are they all about?
Who pays ABTA? What is their job? Is it a Quango? do we need them?
A contract with a holiday company is a contract is a contract, oh yes but only with the purchaser certainly not with the holiday company.
its about time something was done about this, i am constantly reading about bad holiday agents/companies but who is on the holiday makers side? We sign up and pay and my goodness who would be in trouble if they did not follow through - yes you've got it - the holiday makers. :rant over

please give more information. Are you wanting help and advise? if so you will need to give as much info as possible so people on here can advise you accordingly.

what is the refund for?

have you asked them about this on their facebook page they seem to respond quicker when problems crop up on their page.....obviously once you give more info on here loads will be able to advise, a year is a long time and 1k is a heck of a lot of money, I recently asked them questions re a possible booking, all re the price they took donkeys to answer and when they did the price had shot up, for what i wanted, sufice to say, i didnt book with them as this was a pre booking query and if thats how they respond I was dreading to think what they'd be like with a problem, hope you get sorted.

If you want advice you really need to post more information.

Hi All
I was making an online booking with Low Cost holidays on 24th January 2011 for accomodation only and the cost was around £410. At the end of the booking process their system informed me that there had been some kind of system error and that the booking did not process.
I then carried out the booking again and this time it completed ok and a message told me to check my e mail for conformation. When I checked my e mail , I had 2 messages from Low Cost Holidays as they had also processed the first booking as well. How strange ?
I contacted their customer services by phone within a half hour, and after a lot on exhaustive explaining the guy on the other end agrred to cancel the so called first booking and authorise a refund "as a goodwill gesture" So much for their free within 24 hours of booking refund as mentioned on their web site.
It also states that refunds are made normally by 7 working days. Today is now 17 working days since I cancelled and I had to call them again. I have now been informed that I shall get a refund within 5 working days, here's hoping, I shall keep you updated.

Regards

Robert

Sounds to me like you should have sent them a Small Claims Court summons by now.

You have been more than patient with them and after nearly a year I think its fairly obvious that they are taking the P*$$ and that you are not going to get your money without making them pay it back.

Good luck, but at this stage you should be putting everything in writing to them and going down the small claims route.

Sounds to me like you should have sent them a Small Claims Court summons by now.

How do you know this for sure,there are no details of what has happened.
Maybe its not LCH fault we don't know

There's enough detail to know someone got confused! The complaint is dated 16 February 2011 about something on 24 January 2011 so it has only been on the go for a few weeks which isn't long enough to be starting Small Claims proceedings. And even if it still isn't sorted out yet the next step would be a complaint to the card company to see whether they could get it corrected.

I think the comment about small claims court was in answer to the original poster who has been waiting over a year for a refund.

I suppose it's possible but it doesn't flow clearly, and the original complaint seems to have dried up a month earlier. This thread is muddying the waters as we already had 2 threads about lowcost on the go, one in Complaints and one in Tour Operators. Had the second complainant read the other threads he'd have found other people who'd had similar problems. Maybe we should draw a line here before anyone else gets confused.

Well I used Low Cost Holidays (uk) for my accommodation in Malta last month and couldn't fault them

I had an initial problem confirming my reservation online but they did telephone me after I contacted them using their "phone me back" option. One more phone call later and one of their operators did the whole reservation for me over the phone, took my payment and sent the confirmation to me immediately.

Arrived at the hotel and reservation was all as per the booking - and on top of that, they were cheaper than Sunshine.co.uk and TravelRepublic who are usually my first choices for accommodation only bookings.

Shell
Limassol, Cyprus

Hi Again
In the end I contacted my credit card company and asked for a charge reversal. I sent them all my paper work and it was sorted out inside 2 weeks. The holiday with them was good, just make sure that you do not over pay them as they don't seem to want to give refunds of any sort.

Robert

My friend and I plus my 2 teenagers and her teenage daughter all booked with Lowcost for a holiday in Turkey. Firstly they took the holiday money out twice, it was lucky I checked my statement ( sometimes I don't ) and thats how I found out ,then I had to get intouch several times before I got it refunded. I wonder how many people do not check their accounts and do not know thaey have been charged twice. First we were booked into the Hotel Grand Yazici, then when I went into manage my bookings they had changed our hotel to Hotel Mares and my friend and daughter were still in the Grand Yazici. When I contacted them they said they were the hotels I booked ( which I know I would not book 2 seperate hotels) I made 30 calls to 0871 numbers trying to get the matter sorted only to be told they could get us together in another hotel but it would cost another £100 which I refused ( it did not help that I could not understand them very well as the call centre was based in India) I sent 35 emails and we Just could'nt get the matter resolved as they insisted they were the hotels I had booked. We had 2 days before we left for our holiday and still we had not got it sorted , my friend was going to cancel her holiday as she is of a nervous disposition she did not like the idea of us being seperated ( as we were told the 2 hotels were 15 minutes apart). Eventually I managed to get a rep to talk to me in the UK call centre and was told : " We are very sorry for the problems but you are all booked into the same hotel, The Grand Yazici and the Mares hotel are one of the same , it's just that the hotel has had a few name changes and thats where the confusion was" : I could not believe this after all the stress , wanting to cancel our holiday, told I had booked 2 seperate hotels etc . Then just to add to it the hotel had no air conditioning , it came on but nothing came out , also there was building works going on so we were woken every morning at 6.30, and went on till 6 pm ( no siesta)the coaches were up and down outside our room all night dropping off holiday makers and picking them up and they had to stop at the security barrier and the engine was running while they waited to get through. Disaster!!!
Lowcost has all the information of what has happened and they said to allow them 28 days to look into it and that was the last I heard. I don't know what steps to take from here but I know one thing.... to all you holiday makers out there Lowcost maybe cheap but it's not worth the hassle and distress because if anything goes wrong they DO not want to know. If anyone knows what I can do from here please let me know , I want compansation at least for the telephone calls to India which cost £12.50.

Sorry I forgot to add we went on holiday with Lowcost on the 18th April 2011 and the last letter I received from them was end of April stating they would look into the matter and get back to me within 28 days. I have emailed them since but as usual No reply.

You have my sympathy. On Wednesday I received a letter from Solitair, cancelling a holiday scheduled for departure 2nd July, due to insufficient numbers .... and they're refusing to refund my money - will only provide a credit note in accordance with a small clause in their 7-page Terms and Conditions. This is in contravention of the Package Holiday Regulations 1992, Part 13, (1) (c) - check it out. It was stated on their confirmation invoice that they won't pay compensation or expenses but I'm not claiming these - just my money back! I've put it into print to them, but if necessary will take them to a small claims court. KEEP FIGHTING!

Hi Serendipity
The travel agencies are getting a joke these days. They cancelled your holiday due to not enough numbers ? that is scandalous, should not be allowed to do that.
I eventually got a response from Lowcost Holidays after I splashed it over Facebook.
I then had a letter stating they were sorry for all the stress they caused me and for the amount of telephone calls , and that I should have been told the 2 hotels were the same one ( no good to me as none of the staff knew this themselves as I pointed out ).
They offered me a £25 Lowcost holiday voucher ( like I would book with them again no way ) and that was that.
I emailed again and asked them to pay for the calls I had to pay 0871 numbers , they said they don't pay for telephone calls made to them ( even though I was ringing everyday because the staff did not have the knowledge about the hotels).
I have not finished with them yet..... next stop is Watchdog so if you want to join in let me know , the more complaints the more something has be done.

Here is a Freephone number for Low Cost Holidays available during office hours 08001116280. Hope it helps.