Just 18 days after the media coverage of Australian Escapes closure and subsequent re-trading as Australian Escapes Holiday and Travel Club, another travel agency closure has been reported in the media, specifically Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and 2GB.
NSW-based Baulkham Hills Travel failed to open after Easter and is now being investigated for fraud.
TravelManagers chairman Barry Mayo continues to be concerned about the detrimental effect the negative media reports have on the travelling public.
“Consumer confidence in the integrity of the travel industry will be diminishing with the ongoing negative media coverage.
“Is it appropriate for the government to continue ignoring the plight of impacted consumers, considering the damage this negative publicity is doing to the travel agent industry?” said Mayo.
A spokesperson from NSW Fair Trading has reportedly advised that clients “who have not received goods and services paid for by credit card, may choose to contact their financial institution to dispute the payment and inquire about a chargeback.”
Mayo said there is no guarantee of a refund for customers who paid by credit card, as any chargeback would be subject to that customer’s financial institution’s terms and conditions.
“As it has been previously reported that an average of a third of purchases through travel agents are paid by credit card and chargebacks are not generally applicable to the majority of customers, this will provide little comfort to those customers out of pocket.”
The NSW Fair Trading also has been reported commenting on the automatic protections under The Australian Consumer Law.
“Unfortunately, unlike whitegoods and other physical products, the automatic protections under the Australian Consumer Law do not generally apply when there is no actual delivery of product and are, therefore, unlikely to assist with recovery of losses when an agency is liquidated,” said Mayo.
Mayo said he believes this ninth reported travel agency closure since May 2015 will not be the last.
“Stories of agency collapses and consumer losses will continue to appear as long as the industry cannot offer some form of universal consumer protection as was previously afforded consumers under the Travel Compensation Fund. The industry should be extremely worried about the cumulative and long-term detrimental affect these types of negative media reports will have on their future business.”
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