Consumer complaint received 2020-11-04
Company: BARCLAYS BANK DELAWARE
State: NJ
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
I booked a trip to take place from XX/XX/XXXX through XX/XX/2020. Paid the deposit of {$1500.00} on XX/XX/2020 and the balance of {$3900.00} on XX/XX/2020. I have receipts and confirmation emails for both transactions, neither of which contain any reference to cancellation policies. Merchant cancelled my trip without consulting with me and refused to refund our monies, instead giving us the choice of re-booking for another date or lose our money. I appealed to the merchant that since she did not provide any policy to us indicating such, we were entitled to a refund. The merchant refused. 
On XX/XX/2020, I filed a dispute claim through Barclays Bank, the issuer of the Aviator Mastercard I used to purchase the trip. Barclays has repeatedly denied the dispute due to the non-refundable cancellation policy agreed to when making the purchase. I have provided evidence numerous times with my receipts and emails that there was in fact, no policy ever received by me regarding cancellations, non-refundable or otherwise. The merchant also did not provide any evidence of any cancellation policy in the documentation they submitted to Barclays. 
I have provided to them the Mastercard Dispute Resolution Management During Covid-19 document dated XX/XX/2020. I have highlighted the fact that Cardholders are not obligated to accept reasonable alternative services unless required by the terms and conditions properly disclosed to the cardholder at the time of purchase. And also, Reasonable alternatives for future services can not be imposed on the cardholder in lieu of a refund unless the merchant has a right to provide the cardholder with such reasonable alternatives based on the terms and conditions properly disclosed to the cardholder at the time of the purchase. In my case, said term were not disclosed at all. 
The short version is this : 1. I booked and paid for a trip with my credit card. 
2. The merchant cancelled the reservations without consulting with me, the purchaser of the trip, and evidence of the cancellation email was provided by both the merchant and me. 
3. I have provided transaction receipts and accompanying emails as evidence there was no mention of any cancellation policies at the time of purchase. 
4. The merchant has not provided any evidence or documentation that a cancellation policy was disclosed to us at the time of purchase. 
Barclays, in their duty to represent me, the card holder, has thrown up numerous roadblocks in my attempts to rectify this. They continue to deny my claim due to their ability to override the merchants non-refundable cancellation policy, of which they have no evidence and does not exist. They received the merchant documentation/evidence on XX/XX/XXXX but never notified me, contacted me or gave me a chance to respond. They re-posted to my account on XX/XX/XXXX, almost 60 days after they received the merchant response, without any notification. The letter I received later was dated XX/XX/XXXX, three days after they re-posted to my account. They denied my initial request to have the merchant documentation sent to me. They sent me a letter with only one claim number and both claim amounts and advised me to use the number on the form, resulting in me spending time and energy trying to sort that out with their dispute department. Numerous requests to have a manager contact me went unheeded. In fact, I still have not spoken with a manager since my first request on XX/XX/2020. 
There were three other families that booked the same trip. Each of them has been provided a refund through the dispute resolution process at their respective banks XXXX, XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX XXXX XXXX. The reason? The merchant did not provide any policies up front concerning trip cancellations.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation