Overcharged - refund whole thing?

[Jimbo86]

Hi all,

 

Appreciate any advice you can give with this potentially tricky situation...sorry for the long post!

 

My girlfriend had been thinking about spending quite a lot of cash (£300) to hire a venue / activity for a private session for a party in 6 weeks or so's time. She is not particularly well off and had saved the money in advance, as she'd been planning it for a while.

 

She has gone down to book it, and has then been told that basically it's actually £350, and been somewhat pressured into paying anyway. She is not a very "sharp consumer" as it were so she felt obliged to pay up. Subsequently she's had a few days to think about it, and is regretting spending the extra £50 which she can't really afford and upset about being over charged.

 

The website still shows the £300 price. They fed her some stuff about the difference being "the tax", but clearly it's the wrong percentage for VAT and anyway the website is aimed at consumers and makes no mention of the prices being vat exclusive.

 

Obviously she wasn't forced as such to pay the money, but she in general doesn't like to confront people and is more likely just to let people get on with things that are slightly taking advantage of her if she feels like it will cause a fight. She is too "nice" for her own good sometimes!

 

She now is quite upset about the whole thing and basically wants to cancel and do something else instead. The website says "XXXX is unable to offer any refunds for missed or cancelled bookings, regardless of how much notice is given of the cancellation" which is unhelpful to say the least. She has asked for my help as she doesn't really know where to go from here.

 

I am to say the least firmer with this stuff and would not have let it get this far if I had known about it as it was happening. I run quite a substantial business and am quite used to fighting with people over deals etc. But I am much more familiar with these kind of issues in a larger business context than I am small retail / B2C type of stuff.

 

I am wondering if we are able to try and get them to cancel on the basis of the overcharge, either by going to them and talking about sale of goods act etc or going with the threat of getting a chargeback on the card from the bank, due to the same reason.

 

I feel like it was only booked a few days ago, the company has had to make no effort or arrangements as of yet and spent no money (the activity runs regardless - people will book per person if someone doesn't hire it like she did), they have taken advantage of her and upset her, and the appropriate thing to do in these circumstances would be to make a goodwill refund for her. But the tone of their Ts + Cs doesn't sound like this will be willingly given, so I wanted to know where the overcharge stands us legally in case we have to get heavier.

 

So - really appreciate any advice and thanks for reading the long message!

 

James

[dx100uk]

i'd do a chargeback

 

they cant argue then.

 

dx