Loveholidays paid too much after my complaint, should I return it?

[marieofthesea]

I booked a last minute holiday this summer and went with loveholidays although I did worry at the time that they might be a bit dodgy!

Holiday (just me with my 2 teens) was a bit of a disaster. Got a bug or maybe food poisoning and now see there are multiple reports of sickness in this particular resort. Added to this one of my kids who has a dairy allergy was given chocolate they claimed was 'vegan' and had an allergic reaction, the resort then went out of their way to cover this up including lying to my face etc. On top of it all, the food and drink in the resort was a bit substandard. Holiday cost me 4k and I am a single mum. Anyway!

When I got back I decided to try and complain to loveholidays particularly about the allergy issue. I went through various back and forths with them and somewhat predictably they told me I had no case and that was that.
Then, suddenly, just over 3k dropped into my bank account!

I wasn't sure what was happening but then got an email from loveholidays who have said they were trying to pay me circa £300 as a goodwill gesture and somehow paid me too much. Can they have the difference back, they asked!

Now, I am pretty sure that the legal thing is that I have to give all of it back.

But what would you do? I mean loveholidays seem to be borderline dodgy by some of the stories I've read online and certainly rip people off and don't give refunds etc. I don't even understand why they were suddenly trying to give me £300 when they had already said, 'case closed'?!

I know I can go through something called HuntADR to continue my complaint about the holiday.

I've now got a big sum in my account that feels like some kind of poetic justice for the awful rip off holiday experience. And I don't know what to do.

Your thoughts? Thank you all!

Yes that's what I thought! A bit of a risky scam tactic to dump a few grand into my account...in the hopes of what....?!

We have used Love Holidays too and had good experiences both times

Yes I definitely intend to take the allergy issue further and have already sent a separate report to the hotel head office.

OP your eyes may be lit up with £ signs like a fruit machine but are you really willing to get a CCJ on your credit record, as that's probably going to happen. Just pay back the £2700 it isn’t yours.

Someone at LH “accidentally” pays a customer 3000 instead of 300. Someone pretending to be from LH asks for 2700 of it back. This involves someone dodgy at LH with an equally dodgy mate willing to receive funds.

That’s the only way it could work, however I agree it’s unlikely to be a scam.

OP I doubt they’ll think twice about taking legal action to recover it, and you could end up with a fraud flag against you. Be prepared to return it but don’t necessarily make it easy for them either!

Personally I would ignore them and let them reclaim the money through their bank.

We had a nightmare with them. We paid 2k (the cost of ths flights) of a 3k holiday. A payment bounced as we got a a new bankcard. We got no notifications or warnings. I spent two days emailing and phoning to try to get it resolved. I finally got speaking to someone to pay the balance who told me our holiday was now cancelled, sorry. I said please can you do anything, don't cancel the flights please. They said there was nothing they could do, the flights were cancelled but they asked me to pay the1k balance regardless. I said no way.

We then phoned the airline who told us our flights were fine and let us check in. We rebooked our accommodation ourselves.

They then phoned me on the day we were due to travel and said they would rebook our holiday but we had to purchase new flights. I put the phone down.

We then got on our flights and went on holiday.

They are liars.

No - audits use a materiality concept. The bigger the company, the bigger the amount has to be before it really matters. Loveholidays will have a materiality level way about £3k.
For context, Ryanair Group’s last audit had a materiality limit of €97million

But what if they've made the same type of mistake with hundreds of other customers, would it come to light then?

Your bank will contact you asking for your permission to return the funds to the sending bank.

If the “customer refund account” is out by an anmount above the materiality limit then yes, that cumulative difference would be investigated.

I can’t help with the legal right to return or not return the money but just want to say we went to Mitsis BD last September for a wedding and the whole group got ill except 2 people. Even the bride and groom were ill- one on the wedding day. Whatever it is, it’s been going on a while. I’d have hoped that it would have resolved by now. Such a shame as a beautiful hotel otherwise.
I’ve found the Atlantica hotel group to be similar with no sickness for your next one if you get to keep the 3k!

The comment from the CFO husband mansplaining to the rest of us is not correct. I work for a major bank and manage client relationships for large PLCs and multinationals. You'd be absolutely staggered at the lax payment controls some of these huge companies have in place. Its junior accounts clerks inputting payments manually into banking payment screens with very little checking. Fraud is very prevalent in massive companies

Reply stating. Thank you for your enquiry, one of our agents will get back to you within 15 working days.

I don't see how it could be a scam. They send you money then ask for it back? But why? It's definitely from the same company and email address.

I guess you could just ignore it and allege you never saw the email. And you just accepted that money as a refund relating to your previous complaint? But I'm not sure tbh.

I have used Loveholidays for years and never had any issues, even during lockdown when 2 of my holidays got cancelled they were great.

Solicitor here. Legally the law of restitution applies as a result of 'unjust enrichment'. If it is paid by mistake then that party has a right to claim it back. The fact that the receiving party believes they are entitled to it is not a defence.

Do not initiate any payment back yourself. Do not move to a savings account and don't spend it. Inform your bank that you have received an unexpected payment and that you expect them to investigate. Inform Loveholidays that they must do the same, i.e. allow the banking system to sort it out.

The amount of dishonest people commenting is shocking.

I'd reply saying further to a phone call on made up date you accept the partial 3k refund even though you are disappointed that it's not a 100% refund. I'd also take a few weeks to reply to each email and remain absolute that after they closed your case you received a phone call apologising and offering the 3k..Just string it out and hopefully they'll be shut down before they can claim it back

I have seen many cases where people and organisations have pad wrong amounts or wrong people and the bank will not do anything to assist with getting the money returned.

If I was you I would sit tight. Yes it might be illegal but no one is going to do a single thing about it!

In the meantime it won’t harm you to thank them as per a pp and say you consider it mildly acceptable since they put your child’s life at risk!

My first thought is that this is a scam. Call your bank.

They can ask their bank to request the money is returned. Often for businesses their own bank will pay it upfront, so they'll do their level. Best to recover the money.

Please ley your bank know.

£300 is no offer for what happened tp you. £3k is nearer thecompensation you should have been offered. I like the suggestions from others accepting the £3k compensation.

If you have a helpline at work or household insurance, call the legal advice line to confirm what you should/ could/ shouldnt do. It's free.

It is because then they will access the rest of your account. My MIL had something similar, but they had accessed her payee details and had transferred money to her hairdressers account. Luckily she asked us for advice and we went into the bank. Unfortunately, both accounts had to be locked down, which she was embarrassed by. Go into your bank in person. Be careful.

Hello! A word of warning - the bank can absolutely give them the money back with out informing you - I had that done with Euro Cars who said I’d scratched a van I’d rented. I was challenging them about about it and they took £2000😭😭

Initially they just took it and I claimed it back but they pursued it behind the scenes despite me filling out a form about it.

Don’t touch it and see what happens x

Yes of course you'll have to pay it back.

I don't think it's a scam, it's an admin error. The banks will sort it out between them. Don't try to hide or spend the money, even if you think you're entitled to it.