Companies that offer their customers a voucher after cancellations due to the corona crisis do not all follow the applicable agreements. That says the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) after checking 180 voucher schemes. These are schemes that were offered after the deletion of concerts, festivals, sports competitions and other events. It also looked at arrangements regarding payments that had already been made for gyms, courses and courses.
According to Edwin van Houten, director of consumers at ACM, a voucher is a reasonable alternative, but only if it is a fully-fledged replacement and consumers know where they stand. “Consumers are entitled to their money back if a company does not provide a service. But if all companies now have to repay all their customers in one go, many companies could go bankrupt. Then you can not claim anything as a consumer,” says Van Houten. .
ACM carried out audits of 180 companies about which it had received complaints. The authority now finds that vouchers too often do not cover all the costs paid by the consumer. For example, reservation and administration costs should also be reimbursed.
Tapped on the fingers
In addition, the residual value of the voucher is not always paid to the consumer at the end of the term. And ACM also sees that consumers who do not want a voucher do not receive information about how they can get their money back, when they should.
Furthermore, ACM says that companies sometimes wrongly invoke force majeure, which means that they should not have to pay back money, referring to the conditions for ticket sales. It also says that repayment terms are often unnecessarily short.
A number of the companies that have been tapped on their fingers have now adjusted the voucher schemes in accordance with ACM’s principles.
The Authority intends to continue controls in the coming weeks and extend them to travel and airline voucher schemes.
–
