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!

I’d have disputed the “advice” yes because it was nonsense.

In my posts I specifically called out the fact that the pp had asked a man which, as I’ve said I find frustrating. My posts got a few likes etc so some others must agree with me. I obviously wouldn’t have done that if the pp had asked a female relative - but my point is that they generally don’t. There are far fewer comments on the site stating “my wife / daughter / sister / mum / friend is a …..”

I’m surprised they transferred you a sum of money as a goodwill gesture without you first agreeing to it.

When my son got salmonella from an all inclusive hotel, there was much back and forth from Thomas Cook about what they were offering me to make me go away. I refused any offer they made me (few hundred) and chose to pursue legal action. My son had been hospitalised and was extremely ill for several months. It went to court in the end and he ended up getting compensation.

Do I’m surprised they just transferred you an amount without you first agreeing to it.

how could someone know about the refund and pretend to be from LH though?

Regardless of the mistake, it is very poor practice to just pay the complainant a very tiny (less than 10%) goodwill gesture which is not at all proportionate to the seriousness of the complaint, without first checking whether the complainant accepts the tiny goodwill gesture as resolution to their complaint, especially when the company in question has already confirmed that the matter is closed.

It sounds, if it is not a scam, like several mistakes have been made; firstly someone has disregarded your complaint entirely when they shouldn’t have done, then on realising that mistake and realising that they have some liability issues regarding the food safety situation presumably a manager authorised a tiny goodwill gesture instead hoping that would resolve a very serious health and safety complaint, then no apology was made to you saying “we have reviewed your complaint further and on reflection we can offer you a goodwill gesture of….”, then that goodwill gesture was never discussed with you to see whether it is at all acceptable (which if I were you, it is not), then the amount was paid to you without any correspondence and an assumption that this small amount rectifies the complaint which it doesn’t in my opinion, the amount that was paid was very wrong, and now they are trying to cover up all their errors by hoping you’ll just send the excess money back and go away.

If I were you I’d set all of these failings out in an email or letter and also reiterate the allergy and food safety issue as well and say that £300 was never accepted by yourself and is not proportionate to the seriousness of the initial complaint and certainly not your treatment during this complaints process as well. I’d see what they say before sending any money back to them.

A life of crime is not for you

I think this is a probably the closest to an accurate summary, filling in the blanks, I think that's exactly what has happened!

That is awful to hear I am so sorry. I have read so many people say the same about this resort but clearly THEY are the ones whose eyes are lit up with pound signs like a fruit machine (as another commenter said about me 😆) and they want to carry on taking people's money while they KNOW they have a serious issue with a bug in the resort, and in just the same way, they did not want to admit any fault at all with their allergy procedures but instead tried to put the blame on me and my son, because again, pound signs! Terrible, and I'm gutted for your friends about their wedding.

Love holidays is an awful company. Had a bad experience with them.

I would not return it. I would keep it and say you reject their paltry offer, having put your child's life at risk and possibly make a suggestion to return all but the amount you think you were due (£1,000?). They could find that easier to accept than the thought of taking you to court for the rest.

A company cannot simply "charge back" a deposit or force your bank to automatically reverse a cleared bank transfer without your permission. Under UK banking rules, if a company makes an error and sends you too much money via a standard bank transfer (like Faster Payments), the bank cannot automatically take the money back out of your account if you dispute the claim. However the company can contact their own bank and initiate a "payment recall". This is where their bank contacts yours and asks for the money back. Your bank cannot return the money without your permission.

If you refuse to allow your bank to return the money the company can take you to the small claims court. Because the money transfer stems from your complaint about the poor quality holiday and your daughter’s illness you do have grounds to contest the claim in court but you must handle it carefully. Don’t spend the money. If it was genuinely a typo and they sent your £3000 instead the the £300 they mentioned in the email, you have leverage. You can say this was an insultingly low offer for a spoiled holiday and the risk to your daughters health. You could then make an offer of say £1000 (or whatever you consider appropriate) and agree to return the excess if they will make a compromise.

I think you’re right. They need to ensure the resort put things right with food safety and fobbing customers off with tiny compensations every time an incident happens does not encourage them to get things changed.

Don't book holidays with Love Holidays end of.

I booked 2 holidays with them and it was fine but the third one was terrible. It was a holiday to Crete. Ryanair emailed to say they had cancelled our flight to Crete and it would be much later. The return flight was with Easyjet. You couldn't talk to Love holidays except with a bot until several days before the holiday. We got our money back for Ryanair and the hotel but not Easyjet. Apparently the agents book the airlines and hotels online. You may as well do the same thing yourself. We actually had to contact Ryanair ourselves to get our money back.

Sounds like a mistake not a scam.

can confirm. Once the payment has cleared and in your account they cannot just claim it back or reverse without your permission

I’d say you were in process of starting an application to the small claims court seeking the full cost of the holiday -£4k. But if they would like, you would settle for £3k.

If they come back and say no, say you will return the money after legal action as you don’t want it to prejudice your own case.