Refunds and compensation: how to claim what you're owed

If you've been put out by a company, it's important to know that you could get compensation. My husband and I have reclaimed £100s recently by doing so.

When you’re busy trying to save or make money, it’s easy to forget to reclaim money that you’re already owed. 

If you don’t, you could be missing out on hundreds of pounds each year in money that is rightfully yours. 

You can reclaim on delayed trains, flights, some bank charges, overpaid tax and even council tax bills if you can prove your property is in the wrong council tax band. 

Here are some recent examples of how we’ve claimed back cash we were owed. 

Conned by an eBay pirate

Earlier this year, I did something a bit silly.

I ordered a metal Greek helmet from eBay for my son, who wanted it for posterity, as he is a big history buff, and as part of his costume for a school play. 

My 9-year-old is a pester-merchant and bugged me for the umpteenth time about it while I was tired and cooking dinner.  

I’m ashamed to admit that I cracked and just ordered it. 

I foolishly didn’t check the reviews first because, if I had, I wouldn’t have bought it. We should have known by the name of the seller, who named himself after the Black Pearl, Captain Jack Sparrow’s ship in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, that we’d be taken for a ride. 

The seller was based in India, and the reviews weren’t good. Many of his items either never arrived or did so in poor condition.

We paid the princely sum of £45 for it – half paid by me and half by my son and it never arrived. We reached out to the seller, who didn’t respond.  

We tried to get a refund via eBay’s resolution centre, but it did nothing as the seller didn’t respond to that either, so it just unilaterally closed the dispute. 

In this case, it was my 82-year-old Dad, an avid online buyer, who gave me a great tip: reclaim the money from PayPal, not eBay. 

If you’ve bought the item through PayPal or a credit card, you’re covered by their guarantee. I filed for a refund through the PayPal online resolution centre at 9.30 am, and by 10.40 am the same day I got an email saying I’d be refunded within 30 days. Great news! 

If you've had a similar experience, you can file a claim by going into your PayPal account and clicking on the purchase history or contacting your credit card company if you paid by credit card. 

Trains: Delay repay

My husband Doug has to travel into London for work twice a week. The fares from Norfolk aren’t cheap – he spends about £500 a month on travel. 

The trains are often delayed but, on the bright side, if you’re held up for 15 minutes or more, you can apply for a small refund on your journey. 

Under the national Delay Repay scheme, you can claim compensation if you travel on a participating National Rail service.

Check your train company’s website to find out exactly how it works, but generally, the longer you are delayed, the more compensation you are entitled to. 

So, if you’re delayed by 15 to 29 minutes on Greater Anglia, for example, you can claim for 25% of the cost of your single ticket or 12.5% of the cost of your return ticket. 

If the delay is 60 to 119 minutes, you can claim for 100% of the cost of your single ticket or 50% of your return ticket. 

Friends who travelled to London every day from Norwich used to joke that the trains were delayed so frequently that they almost travelled for free!

Doug reckons that on average his trains are delayed at least twice a month, so he claims back around £30 a month – that’s £360 a year. 

You can claim online or by downloading a form and sending it in the post. 

Millions could be owed money

A landmark legal ruling over a case brought against Mastercard means that certain people in the UK may claim for compensation against the credit card firm. 

Mastercard was accused of charging retailers excessive fees for card payments, with the costs passed on by retailers through higher prices for goods, meaning that consumers who never had a Mastercard may have been affected. 

The credit card company agreed to pay £200 million to settle the case, although payment of the compensation has since been delayed by a dispute with Innsworth, a company that helped fund the case.

However, it’s worth keeping an eye on this because, if you lived in the UK for at least three consecutive months between 1997 and 2008 and were aged 16 or over for those three months, you may be able to claim. 

For those in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, you must have been resident between 20 June 1997 and 21 June 2008. For Scotland, it's 22 May 1992 to 21 June 2008, as the law there is slightly different.

During this period, you must have bought goods or services from a firm selling in the UK. Fortunately, you do not have to produce receipts or bank statements to prove this.

It’s not yet known what the compensation figure per individual will be, but it’s thought that it could be up to £70. This will be the website link to claim from once the scheme is up and running. 

Beware scammers

Beware of scammers offering to help you get refunds or compensation, though.  

A common one can be fraudsters sending texts or emails offering HMRC refunds. 

While HMRC does occasionally text and email taxpayers, they only notify customers of refunds via letter or the online portal, so make sure not to click on any links in suspicious emails. 

Never give out your bank details, either. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. 

If you think you've been a victim of fraud, contact Action Fraud.