TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin St. Martin Reservation Centre/Owner Direct Rental

Just FYI....we rented a unit in Orient Bay, through this company. Written in the contract was free chairs at La Playa (4 of us were on the reservation). When we got to the island Sprimbarth Cap Caraibes were the representative on the island. They checked us in and had no knowledge of any chairs. I sent an email to "managing director" who we had been dealing with and he said "sorry, that arrangement has now changed...we can get chairs at Bikini and pay for them and if we eat there we will be reimbursed" . We used this arrangement once and were reimbursed for our chairs; however, we were not about to eat everyday at Bikini......I contacted these people once we got home saying we were looking to be reimbursed at a rate of $10/day/person for 5 days. Of course now all communications have gone silent at the other end. Have called them and have been advised that the person we dealt with is sick??? Any suggestions as to how to go about getting some satisfaction? I realize that it is not a lot of money but we upheld our part of the agreement by paying on time as requested, I simply want them to uphold their written agreement to provide the service we paid for.

If you paid with a credit card you might have some recourse by disputing the charge or a portion of it if that is possible.

Thought of that but we paid for half of it last August and the balance was in October 2016....trip was Jan. 2017. For the life of me I can not understand why people do not live up to agreements...especially when it is in writing.

Call your credit card company to see what the cut-off is. I know when I asked Capital One they told me 100 days, and one of my Citicards said "around" six months. YMMV.

Yes, it's worth a call at least.

Not that it is an excuse, but LaPlaya was recently sold, so perhaps that was why the contract was not honored, but they should have been able to get you chairs someplace else for free. I would be ticked in this instance also. Hope you are able to get a satisfactory resolution.

I have no problems with changes that happen from time to time and I can understand that; however, part of the written contract was the chairs, that was appealing as chairs generally go for $10/day/person (we were 4 people). Since we did not get them and since it was in our written agreement than I expect the reservation centre to compensate us appropriately. I am not asking for more than what we had contracted for. To me it seems like a simple matter. I have sent an inquiry to my CC company.

I don't disagree, that you didn't get what you bargained for.

Since they will not communicate with you, your only real hope is your credit card. Your prime time to have dealt with it was while on the island. They have your money, you are in Canada and they are on the island. They have the overwhelming advantage unless your credit card will step up.

Good luck.

No they are not on the island they are actually in Phoenix Arizona....I will be in Phoenix in October 2017, I might just drop into their office.

I had remembered someone posting they were not happy with this agency, did a search and came up with this. I thought there was another one that had to do with an employee but don't remember the employee's name to do a search. Hope it works out for you.
http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/s...rue#Post1660731

Worth a surprise visit.

The owner of the company is indeed very sick.

Is someone else handling reservations or problems during their illness?

I appreciate the fact that he may well be sick...BUT...that does not mean that the entire organization comes to a halt. We are not talking about the nuclear codes here...simply do what is right and what was contracted for.

So, what was the response from your credit card company?

Have yet to hear back from CC.....thanks for all your input...I will provide the conclusion when I know what it is.

If you just sent them an email, I would call them..

Just sent you a private message.

Re: Credit Card chargebacks. FYI, it will affect your credit rating. Secondly, I am not sure of the lease agreement but I highly doubt it would have been invalidated by the lack of beach chairs since that is a 3rd party responsibility so even if a chargeback is granted (which means nothing legally) the guest still has legal obligations under the short term lease agreement.
Best course of action is to reasonably negotiate between both parties.

Risking getting dinged on a credit report for a such small amount may not be worth it in the grand scheme of things.

Absolutely agree with everything you said...not worried about a credit rating at all....not looking to have the payment be reversed at all...simply want the contract fulfilled as to how it was entered into. If the portion of the contract was not fulfilled, that is fine, just reimburse back for that portion...seems very reasonable. The problem is that the one party that entered into the contract is not communicating for whatever reason.

I have disputed (and prevailed) multiple times on credit card charges. One time several months after a cancelled hotel stay and the property continued to try and bill me. I had a ZERO balance statement but when management changed, they tried two additional times to charge my account. I have a stellar credit rating and have for many years so I am not 100% buying into this having any major impact.

It sounds like the aggrieved did try to initiate civil and reasonable negotiation but it is hard to negotiate when the other party shuts you out.

Are you perhaps confusing chargebacks with charge-offs? They are two distinct beasts. I have never heard of chargebacks affecting one's credit rating.

You did it with a hotel. A short term lease agreement is a completely different story.

No chargebacks not charge offs. You can get dinged two ways. 1. Credit card merchants will note that you have a high rate of chargebacks, it will affect your rating.
2. The seller can easily and will undoubtedly submit a report and put an outstanding sum into collections. Furthermore, in this situation, if there is a lease agreement that is breached then you can be found in default with legal judgement.
Those items will certainly affect your debt rating.

My message is... just know the whole story before providing advice that can adversely affect someone. Sometimes your historical experience does not apply to the new.

I understand your point. I would make a straight offer of a $100 refund and be done with it. Make it simple. They are a competitor of ours and I know that are going through a devastating time. Just make it easy for both parties and resolve it quickly.
In all honesty, they were probably screwed by a local company that did not inform them of any changes or reneged. We all know the stories of what is going on with Orient Beach.
I'm not excusing them, just trying to simplify things.

Was this in fact a short term lease? I don't see that term mentioned.

The poster stated: "we rented a unit in Orient Bay"

You do sound like you would be willing to deal with it in a proper and expeditious way. Sadly, due to health or other reasons, the other company is taking a different road.

Can not make it any more simple $10/day/person for 5 days...there were 4 of us on the reservation...hence $200....I have simply asked to credit the same credit card that they used for payment...can not be any more simple. My understanding with another person in their office is that the arrangement, with La playa, ended 2 years ago; however, St.Martin Resrvation Centre never amended their advertising, deleting this benefit, nor the contract that we signed had not had the change deleted.....the reference in writing on both the advertising and on the contract denoted free chairs daily at LaPlaya...that is partially what we paid for and that is what I partially want to be compensated for.....this is not difficult....it is very straight forward and my request is very straight forward, very fair and very simple.

Renting is always a short term lease agreement.

Rob

I understand your point of view. I don't know enough of the details of your reservation frankly to speak of an appropriate resolution. I am only pointing out facts and filling in information. I am not here to pass judgement.
What you say may make sense to you (BTW make sure you have receipts) but it may not make sense with the counter party that is part of a negotiation.
An amenity like this that is lost should be around 1 to 4% of the lease value for compensation.
The other question is how much time and aggravation are you willing to endure.

Frankly,if it was me, I would say, I understand that you are going through a difficult time but I would appreciate if you could reimburse me "$$$". If you are pleasant and empathetic, it goes a long way. Keep in mind, they are a good company and I am quite sure they did not mean to deceive you. It is hard to keep up with all the information from suppliers and owners. For instance, we have a million data points to keep track of and I have two full time employees doing their best each day with the deluge of information. Not that you should care but there are two sides of the equation.

Take my advice as it is, I am just trying to resolve the issue. They are a good company and sometimes companies do deserve a second chance or special consideration.

Are you saying that disputing a charge will affect the credit rating of the cardholder? With all due respect, that is not correct.

Agreed.

I know you don't want it to be true but it is absolutely true.
In summary:
It depends on the circumstance and what the counter party chooses to do if a charge is reversed. As I mentioned, a chargeback is not a legal opinion or arbitration. It means absolutely nothing in legal terms and does not absolve one of debt or obligation. You are still bound by contracts and by service agreements especially if you used the service or product in full.

The counter party can and most likely will (if there is significant money at stake) seek a claim for unpaid invoice or services rendered plus penalty charges. That claim will be filed locally and a judgement rendered. Once judgement is rendered, the claim will be sent for collections and reported to your credit report. There is certainly other adverse events that can come of it as well depending on the nature of the situation and the posture adopted by the company.
There are a lot of tools businesses can do to recover obligations and it is completely up to them if they wish to pursue it.

So in summary, all these anecdotal tales of it not affecting credit rating is just that... anecdotal. In some cases it is absolutely the right path but in others, it can spell significant trouble, headache and cost. I think it would behoove everyone to be careful when providing advice that can have downstream issues.

As a reminder, I certainly did not come here picking an argument. Just the opposite, to properly inform you of the other side of the equation. A charge back is not as innocent or harmless as people think it is.

I'm a retired banker with 40 years in the business. I am well aware of all the tools a business can use to collect a debt. You are correct in stating that legal action can be taken to collect the disputed charge, but it's a long process, and the disputer's credit report cannot be adversely affected unless and until the judgment is rendered by the court. Simply disputing a charge will NOT adversely affect your credit report, which is what your earlier comment inferred.

I agree with Rob full heartedly. The owner of this company is a stand up guy. I deal with them on a regular basis on many of my bookings and he is very sick and I believe is just recovering from the hospital...

I will alert them of this post... I am sure he will respond to you once he recovers.

SXMBLUE and jeannie239 seem to know the person and the business....they seem to both agree it is a fine company....that being the case I will simply wait in the hope that they step up and do what it is right....I will advise as to what happens....thank you all for your input.

Still no resolution to this issue...will keep you updated.

Thanks for the update and good luck.

Final resolution...SMRC did not provide us with any refund, they had advised that as we were not able to produce receipts from the beach vendors we rented chairs from they were not able to issue any credit. So they did not dispute that we were owed the money just that we were not able to prove that we actually rented from other locations. As a "good will gesture" they would provide $150 grocery voucher to be used before Jan. 31,2018 if we booked another spot through them. HA HA HA!!! Anyway I did lodge a complaint to Visa, provided them with all the documents I had along with the emails that I had with SMRC attempting to settle the matter between ourselves. Visa have credited me with the return funds of $200.
Again I realize that the amount in dispute is small but when a travel agency advertises "free beach chairs" in both their advertising and the contract that we received after our initial payment, than I expect free beach chairs. Our rental was non-refundable hence it is unfair to advertise something, state it in the contract that you both agree to, than on the last confirmation, delete that clause and not say anything. I will allow the readers to make their own decision about right and wrong

Thanks for posting the final resolution. I guess they wanted you to provide receipts, which I guess you could have gotten? Not sure, as I've never personally gotten a receipt from a chair vendor. Regardless, it sounds like though at the end, Visa made it right for you, which is good.

Thanks for the update. I have personally never seen or ask for any receipt for beach chairs/umbrella. Doesn't sound like they really wanted to resolve it. Glad VISA stepped up and I hope they charge it back to the merchant.