Not upheld: refusal to refund disputed charges; chargeback defence; section 75 claim rejection complaint against ZILCH TECHNOLOGY LIMITED

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs B used her Zilch card to pay for car hire in America through an online platform (T) and was subsequently charged additional fees for fuel, smoking, late return, and an extra day. She disputed these charges and asked Zilch to help obtain a refund through chargeback and section 75 claim. Zilch attempted a chargeback which T defended, and Zilch declined to pursue it further, concluding there were insufficient grounds. Zilch also rejected a section 75 claim. The ombudsman upheld Zilch's decision, finding that the chargeback had no reasonable prospect of success and that section 75 did not apply because T was an intermediary platform (not the car supplier) and the car hire cost was under £100.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Zilch acted fairly in not pursuing the chargeback further because there was no reasonable prospect of success following T's defence. Regarding section 75, the ombudsman concluded that no debtor-creditor-supplier agreement existed between Zilch and the actual car supplier (a third party), and even if one had existed, the car hire cost was under £100, which falls below the section 75 threshold. The trip fee element, while having a debtor-creditor-supplier agreement with T, was also under £100 and therefore not covered by section 75.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website