gosh that sounds horrendous, have you contacted the bank and explained whats happened, ive never heard of them

Did you pay with your cedit card? you could get onto card company and get them to claim it back. I have never heard ofthis company. Where do they advertise?

We paid on credit card and they are sending us a dispute. I've also emailed the company stating their terms and conditions about it all and asking them to pay us back by Thursday, if not we'll take further action.

http://www.holidaygenieflorida.com/default.aspx

They keep spamming me with emails with offers.

I would just get into credit card company and explain to them and get your money back straight away.

Credit card company have said all we can do is open a dispute. They aren't being very helpful at all.

That is really bad. Are they still offering you the holiday/

not sure if this is going to be much help.
If a payment is declined it can create what is called a shadow on your credit card. the credit card company are allocating that money for the transaction but it won't actually send the money to the retailer. The shadow stays in place for a couple of days. If the retailer is adament it was declined. what they can do is get an auth code from their payment provider for you and you can give it to the bank to release the shadow. the effect it has on the card is that is shows that the payment has been made.

Having read some other forums, we are lucky they only got £1000. Other people have lost a lot more. It makes me more determined to fight to get the return of my money.

Gosh. is there anyway you can find out what bank the money has been transferred to and refer contact them. They should be able to do something to stop these people from trading. I can't believe they can give a merchant account to just anyone. we had to go through stringent checks to get ours.

Do you know if the company is based in the UK or the US, I'm wondering if that is why the credit card company is being difficult. Surely they will refund as it sounds like you ahve bought a non-existant product.

It sounds horrendous.

They are a UK based holiday company. Their address is London under various companies.

The matter is now with our credit card company as to date we still haven't received a receipt from them for the money we paid and or any proof that they ever booked a package for us. Our emails are not being read or replied to and our phone calls get cut short. Very poor customer service at the least.

Well everyone has different experiences and I've found them to be a terrible company operating under various names. Have had to get my phone companies to ban their phone numbers from contacting our phones and also ban their emails from the harrassment we received from them. Then discovered we would have been cheaper with a holiday company we've used in the past anyway.

Without prying into your affairs do you know why your card was declined? I booked a holiday online a couple of months ago and had a problem. The card transaction failed yet I was aware there were no problems with my card. I contacted the TO and found they had a system fault. They sorted it out for me doing a new booking and cancelling the first (failed) one.

I wonder if they had a fault that then cleared itself and so took your money.

I have looked at their site and see they have ATOL - IATA and ABTA. I would suggest you lodge a formal complaint with them also in addition to your CC supplier.

Did you do screen prints as you were going through the booking process? If you did then it will show the failed transaction and I would send a copy to your CC supplier.

I would not email my complaint to them but send them a letter by recorded/signed for service. Much as it is lauded emails do not always get through, or they sit there waiting for someone to do something about it.

fwh

They don't do online booking. It's all over the phone but we now consider the case closed but would never recommend them to anyone.

Have you got your money back?

fwh

Groovee, could you not tell the forum why you now consider this case closed?

Groovee wrote:

They don't do online booking. It's all over the phone but we now consider the case closed but would never recommend them to anyone.

Found them via travelsupermarket when i was looking for a cheap air fare from London to Bangkok.
They seemed cheap so i booked via them , gave my credit card and personal details and was told booking confirmed - even given a reference number.
To my surprice they sent an email saying flight reservation failed.
After calling them for explanation they refused to honour my booking and requested an extra 40 pounds as the fare was no longer available.
They were rude and unhelpful.
Booked via another company(much cheaper)- Reported them to Consumer Direct and travelsupermarket and will NEVER use them again!!!![/size]