| case
studies – credit cards: card rules can’t take
away contractual rights
28/12
credit card – sums debited for which customer not
liable
Mr
W hired a car while on holiday and authorised the car-hire
company to debit his credit card ‘for the rental
and any excess payable’. On the rental agreement,
he named two additional drivers and confirmed that his
signature would constitute his authority to debit his
card ‘with the total amount due’.
The
booking form said, in relation to insurance and damage:
‘[The hire company] covers the hirer with Collision
Damage Waiver/Theft loss Waiver. In the event of accident
or any damage to a vehicle, the renter will be responsible
for the excess applicable on the hired vehicle.
In
the event of an accident occurring or damage being caused
to the vehicle where no co-driver has been nominated and
a person other than the hirer was driving the vehicle,
the hirer will be liable for the full value of the loss.
It is the responsibility of the hirer to return the vehicle
in a reasonably clean condition. Should the vehicle require
a valet, the hirer will be liable’.
The
car was damaged in an accident while one of the additional
drivers was driving. No other vehicle was involved. The
car-hire company provided a replacement car and Mr W continued
with his holiday.
After
he returned to the UK, the car hire company sent Mr W
an invoice for a sum that comprised not only the hire
cost and insurance, but also approximately £5,000
for damage (the full value of the vehicle). The total
sum had been debited to his card account in four separate
amounts.
When
Mr W complained to the firm, it told him that its actions
were justified under the card scheme rules, so he brought
his complaint to us.
complaint
upheld
We pointed out to the firm that:
- The
rental agreement did not mention liability for damage
in cases where no other vehicle was involved.
- Mr
W had agreed only that sums for which he was liable
under the contract could be debited from his credit
card.
- The
invoice had not been generated until after Mr W returned
home. So there was no evidence that he had authorised
the debit, or that he was even aware of the amount concerned.
The firm agreed to rework Mr W’s account as if it
had not debited the disputed costs. It also paid him £200
for inconvenience.
..................................
28/13
credit card – card wrongly debited – firm says
customer took too long to notify it of the error
When
Mr G was completing his tax return he discovered that,
nearly a year earlier, his credit card had been debited
with transactions he had no knowledge of – totalling
£1,000.
He
contacted the firm and it agreed that he had probably
been the victim of fraud. However, it noted that Mr G
had taken a very long time to spot the transactions and
it said it was now too late, under the rules of the credit
card scheme, for it to ‘charge back’ the transactions.
So it told Mr G that he would have to bear the loss himself.
Dissatisfied with this response, Mr G brought his complaint
to us.
complaint
upheld
Mr G, who was self-employed, told us that he had not spotted
the fraudulent transactions earlier because he received
his statements quarterly and did not check them in detail
until he completed his tax return.
We
thought this was a reasonable explanation. And since Mr
G was unaware of the rules of the credit card scheme,
he could not be expected to be aware of, or to comply
with, any timescales they might impose.
The
firm agreed to refund Mr G with the value of the disputed
transactions.
......................................
|
from
the Financial Ombudsman Service