Openholidays Gone Bust

[pinkyv]

I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WERE I STAND OPENHOLIDAYS
I booked a villa on thursday 31stAug with this company(around lunchtime) when asked they told me they were Atol and Abta members and gave me numbers.They had a special deal if i paid for the villa in full i would save 15%.So i paid £2034.40 in total on a DEBITcard and they email me the invoice.I check thier website for something over the weekend and find it has been put in administration from 31stAugust.How can this happen and they still take bookings etc.Obviously i have been unable to contact anyone as its the weekend.atol no checks out fine but the abta no is under another name but at the same address and phone number.as i have only booked the villa i am not covered under atol.
Anybody?
feeling as though i am going to spend a long cold summer in essex next year.

[Rich44]

If they took a payment from you on the day they went into administration that is very naughty however as the money would not have technically been transferred till the following day (bank data polled at 2am) then you may have some kind of recourse to get your money back that way.

Get down to your bank explain the problem as the fund should not have cleared the company in questions merchant account yet so it may still be possible to instigate a chargeback

Act QUICKLY

[pinkyv]

Thanks Rich,

contacted bank but the payment went out of my account on the 1st september.
I spoke to the administrators who have been appointed to openholidays and thay informed me that they became in charge as of 3pm on thursday 31st.so if my money did not leave my account until 1st of september then the administrators or bank would have it.i put this to them and they seemed very unsure of the situation.
could anybody shed some light?

[Rich44]

When paying by card the money being transferred does not just magically appear in their bank account it clears into a Merchant Account where it sits for a certain number of days before clearing, the reason for this is chargebacks and fraud protection.

Depending on what you're paying charges wise and which Merchant services provider you are subscribing with as a merchant the money will be available between 7 and 30 days its only the shops that run their own banking like supermarkets where this is different.

So if the administrators were put in charge on 31st and your payment went through on the 1st then I assume they have to pay you your money back

[pinkyv]

Lets hope so!
i have spoken to the administrator(he seems a little clueless)he will be contacting the bank and merchant services provider and will be back in touch.
i dont know what else to do/try in the meantime.

p.s anyone have a 7 bedroom villa in menorca for rent next june?

[scoobyandy]

Didn't ready your post properly, ignore my reply - was going to suggest claiming against their atol bond

Good luck, Scoobyandy

[heidi1]

Did you sort your villa out?

If you need any help with that, pm me.

As far asATOL is concerned, you should be covered through them, its ony IATA you wont be covered through. ABTA is for Travel Agents (like me) so if they have an agency business with a different name that will expl the different name and same address and phone number. I dont think that is suspicious.

Have you spoken to anyone at Atol??

Kind Regards

Heidi

[RIS]

Helo CAG people, this is my first post, I would be interested to know your thoughts on the following I am about to post. Thanks

[bearo]

Can you start your own thread please? thanks

[RIS]

part1

Last year my parents booked a holiday with openholidays, they enjoyed the villa and on their return they were offered a 25% discount on next years holiday at the same villa providing they booked and paid in full by the end of June 2006.
This was too good an opportunity to miss so they booked again.
Openholidays then went bust in August 2006.
My parents tried to reclaim the money back but because they are from the old school way of thinking, they do not borrow money unnecessarily, they own no credits cards and paid direct from their bank £900 which they were told by their bank... nothing they can do, my parents worked hard for what little money they have saved and now retired £900 is a large chunk of money.

Openholidays UK Limited, (Company number: 2234971) went into receivership and KPMG (receivers) sold the assets to SKYBARGAINS Limited (Company number: 05243122).

[RIS]

Originally Posted by olliebear

Can you start your own thread please? thanks

ok thanks

[bearo]

Thank you!

[tcr6]

Open Holidays is back and trading as "Villa Warehouse" on (EDIT)