The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Can't I be refunded?

May you please advise on the situation below.

This past weekend I booked a room for one night P550 at a guest house in Mahalapye. I paid for the room and immediately left the lodge to go and finish what I was doing. Approximately 1 and a half or 2 hours later I called the lodge to cancel my booking. My cancellation was acknowledged and I was told to come see the owner on Saturday. Due to my tight schedule I couldn't go on Saturday and went on Sunday.

The owner was not there and I was informed that she left a message that said I will not be refunded because I inconvenienced them. I expected to be charged a penalty fee and given some of the money back because I informed them well on time but they refused. They told me that the person I talked to on the phone when I was cancelling did not work for the lodge. Now the question is can someone who does not work for the lodge be answering phones on their behalf?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Most hotels and guest houses have a cancellation policy. It's normal practice. I'm sure we can all appreciate that these places take booking in good faith and then often turn away other bookings because they thought their rooms would be occupied. If the person who initially booked changes their mind the hotel has lost money.

However, these cancellation policies need to be clear and easy to understand. Another consumer contacted us this week with a similar problem. They cancelled a booking a few weeks before they were scheduled to arrive and were surprised when they only got 75% of their booking fee back. That's because the cancellation policy said any booking cancelled more than 5 days ahead would incur a 25% cancellation fee. Cancellations later than that would result in a higher fee.

I don't know what the cancellation policy is for the guest house you checked into says but I'm certain of one thing. Anyone who cancels their booking after they've arrived isn't going to get anything back and I don't think that's unreasonable.

What should she do?

Good day. A friend bought a couch on hire purchase but now she's struggling to pay. She wants to return it but the shop says she still has to pay all the money. What does the law say about this? Kindly advise.

The bad news is that the shop staff are correct. If she returns the couch either voluntarily or if they repossess it, the store will then auction it but they'll probably only get a fraction of the original purchase price from the sale. They'll then deduct that money from the balance your friend owes but it's likely that when they add on the penalties, interest, debt collection fees and all the other costs she'll still owe them a lot of money, perhaps even more than she owes already. And the final insult is that despite owing them even more money that she does now, she won't even have a couch.

Hire purchase really is a terrible way to buy things. It's horribly expensive, the law offers you hardly any rights you can use to protect yourself and if things go wrong, you can end up in tremendous debt. I've always urged anyone who can't afford to buy something new either to save the money or to buy something second-hand instead.

We should also urge the authorities to consider a comprehensive Credit Act that governs all forms of sale on credit and hire purchase. Consumers have many protections offered by various laws but we need one that protects us against hire purchase going wrong. We've been waiting a long time.

Regarding your friend, she should talk to the store as soon as possible and explain her situation. With luck the store will help her negotiate a repayment plan she can afford.