Virgin Australia overcharged me $4500

[bobcat]

Wasn't really misrepresenting — they pretty clearly state that they overcharged in their contacts, I think they were very clueless in the way they handled this.

In your first post here you showed VA's emailed response (partly redacted) then claimed "they admit I was overcharged".

That email from VA actually suggested "we have confirmed that the charges made were charged correctly". From my reading, that is anything but VA pretty clearly stating they overcharged you ... that is them claiming the charges you incurred were correct.

VA's admission may well have come later - and there is no doubt they could have handled this situation far,far better given the sum involved - but feel the above is misrepresenting VA.

YMMV. At any rate, as I said, genuinely sympathetic as can understand this has created financial stress.

 

[Guvner]

Not sure -- lots of vendors have a one-strike policy on chargeback, regardless of who is in the right (e.g. Valve's Steam, the video game store, famously kills accounts on any chargeback!) VA seems to have the same policy.

I had my Lifemiles account terminated without warning or explanation when I initiated a legitimate (and successful) chargeback. Luckily I only had 500 or so miles in it.

 

[TripleB]

Is it even legal for a company to issue such a threat letter when instigating a charge back that is found in your favour?

The most obvious cause of action would be s18 of the Australian Consumer Law (old s52 of the Trade Practices Act) - misleading and deceptive conduct. The gist of the misleading conduct is 'misleading as to my legal and contractual rights to have the charges reversed or otherwise have the money returned'.

s18 is the best cause of action - but I suspect that you might also be able to shoehorn the facts into the tort of interfering in contractual relations (contract between you and the credit card company). There are a couple of issues with this fact pattern and this cause of action. I'm not convinced it would be a goer to be honest - but probably worth a shot as a backup to s18.

 

[Milboo]

Interesting use of s18 given they have not been misled about their rights as a consumer. They have not been told they are not entitled to a refund/ charges reversed.

The cancellation of the the FF account would a contractual matter - under the T&C of the VFF program. Not consumer law and not tort.

I would not recommend trying to run either argument.

The best line would be pure contract law - ITT, offer, acceptance and consideration elements etc but too much missing information to hazard whether you’d even get that over the line.

 

[theblank]

And there is also no need for Virgin to threaten account closure when quite clearly their Accounting/charging/customer refunds leave a lot to be desired.

they wouldn't have threatened. and there is no need for VA to be accused of stealing.

On the other hand telling VA that you will do a chargeback on a transaction that was originally authorised, clearly meats the definition of a threat.

 

[Pushka]

they wouldn't have threatened. and there is no need for VA to be accused of stealing.

On the other hand telling VA that you will do a chargeback on a transaction that was originally authorised, clearly meats the definition of a threat.

Did you not read upthread? They did exactly that. Threaten closure of account. I received a letter from VA a couple of years ago threatening to cancel my membership if I ever (dared) make a chargeback to my credit card for a refund that took many weeks to happen.

 

[sjk]

Did you not read upthread? They did exactly that. Threaten closure of account. I received a letter from VA a couple of years ago threatening to cancel my membership if I ever (dared) make a chargeback to my credit card for a refund that took many weeks to happen.

Cue the (next) flood of fruitcakes stomping entitledly until you post a notarised scan as documentary evidence.

 

[TripleB]

Interesting use of s18 given they have not been misled about their rights as a consumer. They have not been told they are not entitled to a refund/ charges reversed.

The cancellation of the the FF account would a contractual matter - under the T&C of the VFF program. Not consumer law and not tort.

I would not recommend trying to run either argument.

The best line would be pure contract law - ITT, offer, acceptance and consideration elements etc but too much missing information to hazard whether you’d even get that over the line.

The problem with the contract argument is that at the threat stage (which is the initial question) you have no loss .


Edit: the s18 pleading (or at least one of the alternative pleadings) would be something along the line of '[threat] is likely mislead or decieve [person] as to the appropriateness of submitting a chargeback claim pursuant to the contract between [person] and [credit card company]'.

 

[straitman]

It strikes me that there are a few people chipping in here without having actually read the story and in doing so are skewing the discussion.

For everyone’s sakes can we please keep the discussion relevant and ON topic?

 

[Pushka]

Cue the (next) flood of fruitcakes stomping entitledly until you post a notarised scan as documentary evidence.

Well at least they can’t chuck the ‘first post on AFF’ tag on me. I can’t prove it. I threw it in the bin in disgust. And put it into the ‘forget and don’t deal with them again’ basket. And it was only until the OP referenced this threat in their T&C’s that I remembered that letter.

 

[coles525]

Have been reading from the start. Including the update a few pages back.

My basic question (to no one personally), in regards to cancelling an account due to cc charge back: Would that be permitted by law? (Ie: I got double charged, provider is ignoring me thus I'm complaining to cc provider.).

Would the cancellation letter be classified as bad service, should it be referred to the banking / transport etc... commission?

Only a basic question.

Also I record all my calls! When places I ring quote for quality and coching purposes / do you permit.... I always say yes, as a few times I have actually used my call recordings as proof (even after thay said there was no record of a call occuring).

Legal buffs: Please do a seach on each states law in regards to recording a call you make or recieve

 

[Pushka]

Have been reading from the start. Including the update a few pages back.

My basic question (to no one personally), in regards to cancelling an account due to cc charge back: Would that be permitted by law? (Ie: I got double charged, provider is ignoring me thus I'm complaining to cc provider.).

Would the cancellation letter be classified as bad service, should it be referred to the banking / transport etc... commission?

Only a basic question.

Also I record all my calls! When places I ring quote for quality and coching purposes / do you permit.... I always say yes, as a few times I have actually used my call recordings as proof (even after thay said there was no record of a call occuring).

Legal buffs: Please do a seach on each states law in regards to recording a call you make or recieve

I’ve already asked the same thing earlier.

 

[Jack_OC]

Cue the (next) flood of fruitcakes stomping entitledly until you post a notarised scan as documentary evidence.

Seems like someone has failed to notice that we fruitcakes were 100% correct to suspect that the OP had misrepresented what VA said. It's a shame that it took a fair bit of stomping to force the OP to reveal the full email, but to his credit, at least he did so eventually.

FWIW, I have no trouble accepting that VA threatened account closure in response to chargebacks. I certainly don't agree that is fair, but it does seem to be a policy that a number of businesses have adopted, as reported by numerous people here and elsewhere.

However, the claim that VA admitted overcharging yet still refused a refund never made an ounce of sense - I'm still amazed that anyone accepted that based on the evidence provided. The only reason I even looked at this thread is because that extraordinary claim appeared as if it was a fact in the email from AFF yesterday ("..despite acknowledging the error, Virgin initially refused to refund any of the money"). The truth was "Virgin initially refused to refund any of the money because they claimed that the amounts charged were correct". Really not sure why the OP didn't just say that in the first place.

 

[burmans]

They initially wanted to wait days/weeks for their upgrade vendor (who is apparently NYC-based) to get back to them, before they refunded me, but I argued that the correct customer service action was to make it right with the customer before waiting for their investigation to complete. It made no sense to me why they became so hostile initially, and refused refunds, while simultaneously admitting it was overcharged but refusing to say it was a mistake.

Pretty standard practice these days not to admit any liability but suggest remediation is a "goodwill" payment or similar. Unfortunately not surprised at all, plenty of companies do this all the time, its certainly not only VA guilty of this.

 

[burmans]

Thanks for providing the full response. However, there is absolutely nothing irrelevant about the paragraph that you initially redacted - in fact it contradicts a key part of your OP: you initially claimed "they admit I was overcharged, but refuse to fix it". However, in reality, they refused to accept that you were overcharged - in fact they explicitly stated "we have confirmed that the charges made were charged correctly".

There is a world of a difference between these two versions. I think it's now very clear why you redacted this paragraph - you were trying to make it look like they had agreed you were overcharged, when in fact they had not done any such thing. It's ridiculous to suggest that comment was "irrelevant".

I think you seem to be missing the point rather that the letter was not his only communication with the airline on this, I've certainly had many many interactions with organisations both in a personal amd professional context where the verbal and the written were vastly different.

 

[Pushka]

Seems like someone has failed to notice that we fruitcakes were 100% correct to suspect that the OP had misrepresented what VA said. It's a shame that it took a fair bit of stomping to force the OP to reveal the full email, but to his credit, at least he did so eventually.

FWIW, I have no trouble accepting that VA threatened account closure in response to chargebacks. I certainly don't agree that is fair, but it does seem to be a policy that a number of businesses have adopted, as reported by numerous people here and elsewhere.

However, the claim that VA admitted overcharging yet still refused a refund never made an ounce of sense - I'm still amazed that anyone accepted that based on the evidence provided. The only reason I even looked at this thread is because that extraordinary claim appeared as if it was a fact in the email from AFF yesterday ("..despite acknowledging the error, Virgin initially refused to refund any of the money"). The truth was "Virgin initially refused to refund any of the money because they claimed that the amounts charged were correct". Really not sure why the OP didn't just say that in the first place.

Well, to me a company claiming the charges are correct when in reality they are not, sounds just like an Insurance company who refuses a valid claim on first presentation.

 

[Jack_OC]

I think you seem to be missing the point rather that the letter was not his only communication with the airline on this, I've certainly had many many interactions with organisations both in a personal amd professional context where the verbal and the written were vastly different.

No, I think you're making incorrect assumptions. The OP consistently claimed that VA admitted in this email that they overcharged him, when in fact it said the opposite (a fact that was initially concealed by his redaction). For example:

They got back to me with the following, finally, after a few weeks, with this doozy:
"...we appreciate your request for a refund of the overcharged amount, a refund of this will not be forthcoming

I appreciate that you remain disappointed and frustrated with the outcome and apologise once again."

So they admit I was overcharged, but refuse to fix it.

​

As shown in my image above, they have confirmed I was overcharged but still refuse to fix it.

[In response to the question "What was in the paragraph you have blanked out?"]

Some more specifics, mostly unrelated. The gist is they say they checked their system and I’m wrong. Then they later admit they overcharged.

All of the above comments clearly refer to the email that the OP manipulated.

 

[burmans]

No, I think you're making incorrect assumptions. The OP consistently claimed that VA admitted in this email that they overcharged him, when in fact it said the opposite (a fact that was initially concealed by his redaction). For example:

[In response to the question "What was in the paragraph you have blanked out?"]​

All of the above comments clearly refer to the email that the OP manipulated.

Post #10 has two things attached, the email and a screenshot (subsequently better shown in post 12).

The wording you refer to "So they admit I was overcharged, but refuse to fix it." does not say that the email says this, just the VA have said this, you have not provided any reference which says that this was admitted in the email. The response to your question "What was in the paragraph you have blanked out?" may be confusing if it doesnt answer your question but specificaly refers to the image not the email.

 

[Dr Paris]

Folks, I appreciate the discussion, so don’t misinterpret this as a request to stop, but I really wasn’t trying to misrepresent anything.

VA said it was correct, according to their systems, and then said I was overcharged. They did this in emails and phone calls, one of of which you’ve seen.

With, or without, the context in the email I redacted and shared (and again, I don’t actually know why I redacted it — I wasn’t trying to misrepresent anything, I was just trying to condense my posts to the minimum necessary info to have a whinge with!) at various points and over various mediums, VA said they overcharged me and refused to refund.

I clearly _was_ overcharged, since they ultimately refunded me. I knew this all along, since I had photos of the transactions and such; VA clearly didn’t know this until a certain point, but customer service principles failed them when they erred on the side of being hostile to me instead of fixing it with me immediately (or they thought I had committed some kind of fraud, which I hadn’t, but I guess the junior bits of VA customer service land didn’t have the info to assume anything but malice or incompetence on my part).

I’m pretty unimpressed with their conduct, but they eventually did the right thing.

I think three things of concern come out of this incident, for me;
1 — I’m hesitant to use their upgrade system again!

2 — I’m worried about what might cause them to close my VFF account.

3 — I’m concerned why they were so hostile and didn’t fix things up with me initially.

 

[Pushka]

Folks, I appreciate the discussion, so don’t misinterpret this as a request to stop, but I really wasn’t trying to misrepresent anything.

VA said it was correct, according to their systems, and then said I was overcharged. They did this in emails and phone calls, one of of which you’ve seen.

With, or without, the context in the email I redacted and shared (and again, I don’t actually know why I redacted it — I wasn’t trying to misrepresent anything, I was just trying to condense my posts to the minimum necessary info to have a whinge with!) at various points and over various mediums, VA said they overcharged me and refused to refund.

I clearly _was_ overcharged, since they ultimately refunded me. I knew this all along, since I had photos of the transactions and such; VA clearly didn’t know this until a certain point, but customer service principles failed them when they erred on the side of being hostile to me instead of fixing it with me immediately (or they thought I had committed some kind of fraud, which I hadn’t, but I guess the junior bits of VA customer service land didn’t have the info to assume anything but malice or incompetence on my part).

I’m pretty unimpressed with their conduct, but they eventually did the right thing.

I think three things of concern come out of this incident, for me;
1 — I’m hesitant to use their upgrade system again!

2 — I’m worried about what might cause them to close my VFF account.

3 — I’m concerned why they were so hostile and didn’t fix things up with me initially.

My experience is that Virgin just dont like any third parties getting involved in refund situations and which is when they make threats of closure.