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The real pettiness of customers was brought home to us after a small error on our part lead to a visit to the small claims court

Noel Josephides

Let me tell you a sorry tale of petty officialdom. Just over a year ago, we decided to withdraw one of our wholly owned subsidiary companies from ABTA.

British Virgin Islands Club was a member of the Association of Independent Tour Operators anyway, and the company was bonded by the Civil Aviation Authority for licensable turnover and by AITO Trust for non-licensable business. AITO has a code of conduct similar to ABTA’s and our main company, Sunvil, has always been an ABTA member.

Anyway, we had decided it was pointless paying two lots of subscriptions. I do not have to tell anyone who runs an operation of any size how difficult it is to remove all traces of an association’s logo from paperwork overnight and, sure enough, on one batch of computer invoice paper, the ABTA logo was not stickered out and a particular gentleman who had booked through an ABTA agent received his Caribbean holiday confirmation on one of these sheets.

This man had booked a self-catering holiday to one of the British Virgin Islands at very much the cheaper end of the scale and had refused to take out our own travel insurance, which included hurricane cover, in favour of the cover offered by his NatWest credit card. As you would expect, a hurricane began to blow up and we warned the couple that they should move.

Initially they decided not to. A day later, when it was quite clear that the hurricane would hit that particular island, there was an almighty rush by everyone to get off and, needless to say, this couple did, after much hassle, leave. At our considerable expense they moved to St Lucia, where they insisted on staying at one of the most expensive properties on a full-board basis.

They wanted us to pay for this. We refused, saying this was a case of force majeure and that we were only prepared to pay for equivalent accommodation. If they wanted more luxury then they could pay the extra.

We duly had a solicitor’s letter when they returned. You know how clients like to think this puts the frighteners on tour operators although we, of course, told them where to go. So, they took action against us in the small claims court. Of course, they really wanted to get us by now so they also reported us to Trading Standards for sending out a confirmation with an ABTA logo when we weren’t members.

We explained to Trading Standards that we had made a mistake, apologised, pointed out that we were not a fly-by-night concern and that the company at fault was bonded, was a member of AITO, with similar codes of conduct to ABTA’s and that really the client was at no risk.

Nevertheless, we were considered to have committed a heinous crime, were taken to court and fined £750 plus costs. At this hearing, Trading Standards also had the cheek to ask for compensation for the client. I’m pleased to say that this was thrown out.

The client didn’t bother to turn up for his own court case against us, probably knowing he didn’t stand a chance.

So, all you evil tour operators preying on the innocent public, be sure to know there is an august body out there, paid for by us tax payers, that really does champion the public on such very serious issues.

Trading Standards, aren’t there more serious cases on which to spend your limited resources?

“We were considered to have committed a heinous crime”