Airline claims they overpaid compensation and demand refund within 10 days!!

[Ed Gasket]

Last July me and my wife's flights were delayed

 

I made a claim with the airline for compensation as per the regulations.

 

Since then I have had no communication at all from the airline but on checking my bank account I can see that two separate payments have been made by the airline, the second being two months after the first and for the same amount. I have had nothing from the airline to say what these payments are for or how they have been calculated.

 

Today I have received two emails addressed to 'Dear Mr/Mrs Customer' claiming that the second payment was in error and that I need to make an international bank transfer of the second payment within 10 days or they reserve the right tom take legal action. The amount they are asking for is two lots of £250.

 

First of all am I obliged to pay this when I have had no explanation for either of the payments the airline made?

 

Secondly how do I know this is not some kind of scam (can't even use my name) and is it safe to just make a payment to some foreign bank account using an IBAN number (I have never done one of these)?

 

Thirdly are they actually likely to take legal action and what would be the likely chance they are successful and that I would have to pay their costs and what might these costs be?

 

I don't actually have the £500 to pay right now anyway so if I engage with these emails, would I be entitled to ask for a payment plan?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

 

[FTMDave]

Of course you're right to react as you have.  It could easily be a scam.

 

Can you please copy here the text of the e-mail and the e-mail address?

 

Plus how much were the two payments made to you?

[honeybee13]

Could you tell us which airline please?

 

HB

[BankFodder]

Also start reading up on this link.estoppel

[Ed Gasket]

I would rather not name the airline but it is a European one.

 

According to my bank statements, I have had two payments of £500 (none for £250 as referred to below, though there were two concurrent claims) and now being asked to make two payments of £250 back to the airline ( I have received a total of £1,000). So assuming it is genuine, the numbers look right if one assumes that I was supposed to get £250 per claim and not £500 as I have been paid; but as I have had no communication from the airline I don't actually know what they intended to pay.

 

The redacted email is as follows:

 

Dear Mr/Ms customer,   We are writing to you regarding a payment of 250.00 GBP that XXXX made on 2022-07-31 as compensation after accepting your request referred to above, in accordance with European regulations.   After analysing your case, XXXX has confirmed that this compensation was paid twice in error, the second payment being on 2022-11-20.   In accordance with the aforementioned, XXXX is requesting you to amicably return the amount of 250.00 GBP that was paid in error within the next 10 days, by bank transfer to the following account:   - Banking Entity: BANKINTER, S.A.   - BIC/SWIFT Code: BKBKESMMXXX   - IBAN: ES88 0128 9444 1901 0000 4423   - REFERENCE: xxxxxx + Passenger's Name and Surname   Once the transfer has been made, please send us the proof of payment to this email address.   XXXX will cover any bank charges or similar charges, provided they are reasonable and justified, that you may incur when refunding the money. You may automatically deduct them from the payment.     If you do not make the requested refund within the established time frame, XXXX reserves the right to take legal action to recover the amounts received in error, as well as any legal costs that may arise.   Please accept our sincere apologies once again for the inconvenience caused by this incident.

Yours sincerely,, XXXX  airlines

[Ethel Street]

If I had received that it would have rung alarm bells immediately as a scam.

 

I can't point to anything specific that is wrong but something about it doesn't feel genuine. 

 

If it is a scam best not to reply. Replying to scammers just tells them you might be gullible enough to believe them and they'll get working on you.

 

If it were me I would ignore this completely. Wait and see if any genuine official court documents actually arrive at your address. If they do there will be plenty of time then to sort it out without going to court.

 

Does the genuine airline know your current home address? (To avoid risk of a backdoor CCJ).

 

Do you mean the email actually called you  "Mr Customer" and not your real name? If so then I'm even more suspicious.

[Ethel Street]

Just add that if you decide to ignore this, as I would do, make sure you keep all the paperwork safe just in case it turned out to be genuine and they started a legitimate claim against you some time in the next 6 years.

[Ed Gasket]

Yes that it exactly how it is addressed; very unprofessional if genuine. Only if it is a scam then how would they know I got compensation and how much ? - well I suppose emails aren't secure so that's one way or someone at the airline passing information on.

 

They do have my address.

 

I think I will do nothing and see what happens; I mean I have a good defense in that I submitted two claims and had two payments; neither of which I had any advise of from the airline. The recent emails could have gone to my junk box for all the airline knows; it is not from an email address I have had anything from before though does contain the airline name.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Ed Gasket

[FTMDave]

I agree with you & Ethel.

 

Also, a company doesn't just rush to court.  They send reminder letters and ultimately have to send a Letter of Claim before. 

 

So if it isn't a scam you'll have lots of opportunity to settle with them.

 

Ignore for now.

[Ed Gasket]

Is it reasonable to expect at least a statement and/or calculation of what they have paid me before going any further? Otherwise there is just two credits to my bank with no explanation.

[BankFodder]

I agree that it is not a scam. I'm sure that it is a genuine message.

However I think what has happened here is that there has been a mass overpayment to a very substantial number of customers.
They don't have the resources or the technological support to have designed an email which is apparently addressed to each person individually so they have sent out a bulk email and they are rather hoping that a substantial number of people will simply comply and repay.

On that basis, I agree with my site team colleagues above that you shouldn't do anything. Wait and see how it develops and come back here.

 

Read estoppel

Very important

[Ed Gasket]

By 'estoppel', do you mean I expected compensation X 2 and when I received two payments I believed that was what I was due as the airline had not explained what the payments were for or what the correct amount should have been?

 

Then I acted on the belief that the money was mine and have put myself in a position different to had I not been paid the money (i.e. I spent it) so should not have to pay it back. Is that the gist of the estoppel argument?

 

If a genuine error has been made, then I don't object to paying back the money BUT not just in response to a possible scam email without even my name in it, not without a proper statement showing what I should have received and what I have actually been paid, and then given a reasonable time to pay it back or some kind of payment plan. 

[dx100uk]

BANKINTER, S.A.

 

thats spain.

 

did you fly from spain?

did you book the tickets with them?

 

sorry this smells if you didn't.

[BankFodder]

12 hours ago, Ed Gasket said:

By 'estoppel', do you mean I expected compensation X 2 and when I received two payments I believed that was what I was due as the airline had not explained what the payments were for or what the correct amount should have been?

 

Then I acted on the belief that the money was mine and have put myself in a position different to had I not been paid the money (i.e. I spent it) so should not have to pay it back. Is that the gist of the estoppel argument?

 

If a genuine error has been made, then I don't object to paying back the money BUT not just in response to a possible scam email without even my name in it, not without a proper statement showing what I should have received and what I have actually been paid, and then given a reasonable time to pay it back or some kind of payment plan. 

 

In that case, just go about your business and come back here if you hear anything else.

There is nothing more to be said about this at the moment. I think that is the end of the discussion

[Kyosanto]

One popular scam is to make believe someone received a payment by showing you fake bank statements. If you are positive that the money actually reached you it's unlikely to be one of those scams.

 

£250 would be the standard EC261 compensation for one person for a flight delay for a flight from/to Spain, so seems probably genuine to me and if only 1 of your flights was delayed than £500 is standard compensation.

 

If you do decide to pay back the overpayment, feel free to retain money used on drinks/food while you were waiting as you are also due that. You could in adition try lowball them a little for your efforts. After all they love charging us admin fees, so why wouldn't you try!

 

You should name the airline really as the community can only benefit from sharing of information. Based on the bank it's most probably going to be Vueling or Volotea?