Is it legal for Turkish Airlines to refuse to refund a cancelled refundable-ticket purchased online? The issue Before coming to Turkish Airlines office I could refund both tickets online. After the simulation only one ticket was available, I directly ask for cancellation of the remaining ticket online and got refunded after a week. I couldn't refund the second ticket for a technical issue caused by a staff internally. It is not my fault if the second ticket got detached and yet they refuse to refund me now. I believe that my right has changed somewhere. The contract The contract says refundable or exchangeable with cancellation fees. The facts Here are the facts. I am a french and European citizen. My friend is a Nepalese citizen that my family is inviting to France. She holds a Schengen visa that was granted to her after we issued an invitation letter to EU. For that reason I have made a purchase online using my personal credit card attached to a french bank account on Turkish Airline online gateway. Through this purchase I believe that I became the owner of both tickets and I am therefore protected by certain EU consumer rights. This is also why the invoice name and address are different from the passenger name in the case of my friend. The visa being granted after the departure date I then decided to go to the Kathmandu office to ask for a price simulation. The price difference being too important I decided to ask Turkish Airline for cancelling and online refund because that is my right as stipulated in Turkish Airline policy as well as the EU consumer act. When I came back online to cancel and ask for refund only one ticket was available, the second ticket being detached during the simulation process I asked the Turkish Airline’s staff to put everything back as it was when I first arrived. That is when the Turkish Airline’s employee started to behave unprofessionally stating among other things that it was not possible, that I had to ask the call center and finally sending me to an equally ranking staff member that was not part of the process from the start. Even if I consider that Turkish Airline’s staff should have asked a manager or call the Turkish Airline center themselves they said that they had no access to any landline and they started staring at their computer screen without responding to me or even looking at me. I felt humiliated and since it became impossible to establish a clear communication I decided to leave the place and report it by email on the Turkish Airline’s platform. Upon sending the email a first auto response told me to wait 7 days and after 9 days another auto message told me that the issue was still under investigation. I then decided to borrow a mobile phone and call a supposingly Turkish Airline toll free number. After 2 minutes the phone balance went out and I had no other choice but to follow up on the previous ticket by email. My second email must have call upon Turkish Airline attention because the Kathmandu sales contacted me the same day to give me an appointment. I came back for the second time and this time the staff member told me and my friend to write a letter of consent for cancelling and refund. I did write the letter because it was my credit card and I am the one asking to be refunded and not the passenger. Turkish Airline’s staff then asked for a signed authorization from my friend to cancel and refund. When we refused he told us that we were in Nepal and that cancelling and refund would then not be possible if we would not accept to complete the full process. The irritated tone of my voice final made a Manager come out from the back office and ask for explanations. After more than 2 weeks I was surprised that the Turkish Airline’s manager was not already aware of the situation. The Turkish Airline’s staff that did the changes was not at office to answer so the other Turkish Airline’s staff said that I had requested a change of ticket from call center and that it was now impossible for me to cancel and refund it online. I replied that it was not true and that I had never call the Turkish Airline’s center and never give my consent for my friend’s ticket to be separated from my initial order, and certainly not the ownership of the ticket. The simplest way to prove it is that Turkish Airline record every conversations made to the call center and Turkish Airline won’t find any call prior my first visit to Kathmandu office because I never called Turkish Airline’s center before my visit to their office. Turkish Airline’s manager finally asked for my bank account information but asked my friend to sign the information together with a refund receipt written in Turkish. Neither my friend nor I speak Turkish but Turkish Airline staff insisted and under the pressure my friend signed both papers and we left the room once again humiliated. Two weeks later Turkish Airline is contacting me saying “In light of above determination, we regret to inform you that we are unable to meet your demand positively.” Question Here are the questions that I want to ask to anyone who can answer them: 1 — Is it legal for Turkish Airline to charge a EU citizen online and grant full rights over half of the amount of the transaction to a none EU citizen without the consent of the buyer? 2 — Is it legal for a EU citizen to require the signature of an invited passenger to get refunded? 3 — Is it legal for Turkish Airline’s staff member outside the EU to manually modify an invoice issued online with a credit card attached to a EU bank account and force a none EU citizen to give her consent for the refund to be approved? 4 — Is it legal for Turkish Airline’s staff member to change the logs to cover the fact that a transaction manually modified through help desk was instead modified through the call center and can the Turkish Airline prove it without record of the call and therefor client consent? 5 — Is it legal to retain around $200 of cancellation fee for an online transaction and force the client to come back 2 times physically, call 1 time on the phone, send 3 emails, write 1 letter requesting the cancellation and ask a none holder of the credit card for authorization letter and signature? 6 — Finally, is it legal for Turkish Airlines to refuse to refund a cancelled refundable-ticket purchased online? If anyone is interested in seeing the conversation logs between Turkish Airline and I, please let me know.
Turkish airlines states its cancellation policies here – this is what appears to a person in the US, content in Nepal or elsewhere is anyone's guess. The possibility and cost of cancellation depends on whether the ticket is domestic or international, and what the fare class is. For example no cancellation with refund is possible under the international economy promotional fare. There are various charges associated with other fares. So, it is legal for them to refuse to refund a cancelled ticket, depending on the facts. Or there could be some charge for rebooking. An airline does not use force to compel a customers to do things, but they can legally make it inconvenient for you to obtain a refund or rebooking. There is no law requiring that transactions with an airline be concluded by phone call within some number of minutes, or online, or by going into an office. They also provide information on changing someone else's ticket here. Can I travel using a ticket issued in someone else’s name? Topic: Reservations and bookings Last modified: July 03, 2015 No, only the person whose name and surname is written on the ticket can use it to travel or make changes to the booking and route. For this reason, you can only travel using tickets issued in your own name. For more detailed information please visit our booking page. Although you may have paid for the ticket, it is not your ticket. This page also addresses buying tickets on behalf of a third party: I want to buy a ticket for someone living in a different city. Will they be able to collect the ticket in the city where they live? Topic: Reservations and bookings Last modified: July 03, 2015 The person you buy the ticket for can collect the ticket from their nearest Turkish Airlines sales office. This process can also be simplified by using an e-ticket. You can purchase an e-ticket in the other person’s name either online or from our call center. For more detailed information please visit our reservations page. The question about changing logs doesn't have an obvious answer, since said "log" is probably a company-internal record and not a governmentally-regulated record. It would not be legal to falsify evidence in a legal proceeding. In case of legal dispute, you can present whatever evidence you have that tends to support your side of the story, and the court will decide whose version of the story is most credible.
Technically the signage implied an agreement, and allowed you to infer one. But yes, I think that management could not legally insist on more than the posted price, whether for a lost ticket, or for a particular duration. (Unless the sign included "prices subject to change without notice" or something of the sort.) As a practical matter, challenge this is going to be a pain. The employees on the spot probably have no authority to vary the price merely because the amount programmed into the register differs from the posted sign. At least they will claim not to have such authority. And they won't release the car without being paid the $80 that they will insist is the proper price. To challenge this, a person would probably have to pay under protest, and then sue for a refund, I would hope in a small claims court. Most people will not go to that trouble for $10, which perhaps the management counts on. Publicity might be more effective.
There is, in most countries at least, no law requiring a business to treat a customer fairly. In general, a business may refuse to serve a would-be customer for any reason or none, provided that the reason is not membership in a protected class (racial, religious, ethnic, or sexual bias, mostly). Exactly which classes are protected depends on the local law (in the US, there can be such laws at all of federal, state, and municipal levels). If a customer is asked to leave and does not do so, s/he could be charged with defiant trespass (or local equivalent). More likely, security, or the police, could simply escort the customer out of the business, using as much force as is reasonably needed for that purpose. Unless there are grounds for action not mentioned, I see no basis for a successful suit by the customer.
The retailer You can try making a subject access request under Articles 15(1) and 15(3) of the UK GDPR. Provide as much information as you can (your name, date of purchase, store you purchased it from, copy of the receipt, etc.) and ask for the serial number. If they still have it, and it is stored in a way which is linked to you in an identifiable way, then they are obliged to provide it without undue delay (and in any event within 30 days). You may want to provide a copy of your passport in the request to pre-empt them coming back with an ID check request under Article 12(6), which then allows them to delay processing the request until you have replied. As stated above, if they no longer have the data or you are not identifiable from the data then they do not have to provide it. If they do have to provide it but refuse then you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office or ask the County Court for a compliance order under section 167 of the Data Protection Act 2018. The insurer Regulation 3(1) of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 prohibits &quot;unfair commercial practices&quot;. Regulation 3(4) provides that a commerical practice is unfair if, inter alia, it is listed in Schedule 1. Paragraph 27 of Schedule 1 contains the following item: Requiring a consumer who wishes to claim on an insurance policy to produce documents which could not reasonably be considered relevant as to whether the claim was valid, or failing systematically to respond to pertinent correspondence, in order to dissuade a consumer from exercising his contractual rights. As you've provided proof that you purchased the item, you can try to argue that having the serial number of the lost item can not &quot;reasonably be considered relevant&quot;. Yes, the contract says that you must provide it, but consumer rights legislation overrides contractual provisions. You may also want to consider dealing with the insurer by email/post instead of by phone, (a) to avoid continuing to waste time on hold, and (b) because if they systematically fail to respond then this may also cause them to be in breach of the above provision, (c) to acquire evidence which you can use later. Escalating If you get no results from the insurer, make a formal complaint to them through their complaints process. Under the FCA Handbook rule DISP 1.3.1R, the insurer is required to provide a complaints procedure. Under rule DISP 1.6.2R they are required to provide a final response to a complaint within 8 weeks. If you are not happy with the response, you can escalate the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service which has the power to make financial awards pursuant to section 229 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (&quot;FSMA&quot;). Doing so is free of charge and is therefore a good alternative to going to court. The ombudsman can also make awards that are not strictly based on law (i.e. they can go further than the courts can) because of section 228 of FSMA which provides that: &quot;A complaint is to be determined by reference to what is, in the opinion of the ombudsman, fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the case.&quot; You must generally escalate a complaint to the Ombudsman within 6 months of receiving your final response from the insurer (rule DISP 2.8.2R).
No, they are not exempt Consumer protection laws (in general) apply to anyone doing business with consumers in that jurisdiction. You need to follow that law and apply to the company for a refund in compliance with the law. If they refuse, you can report them to the German regulator who may, or may not, take action against them. If you paid with a credit card, PayPal etc., once the company has broken the law, you can apply to them for a reversal of the charge. Similarly, most online platforms like eBay or Amazon will reverse the charge if you used them.
Your legal obligation to pay income taxes is generally dependent upon where you perform the work, not where the funds you earn from doing the work are delivered. If you do work in Turkey that causes you to receive earned income, you owe Turkish income taxes on those earning, and your employer has a legal obligation to the Turkish government to make sure that those taxes get collected, or your employer will have to pay your taxes (with penalties) for you. If your employer has to do that, your employer will dock your pay to cover your obligations regardless of which bank account you use or whether you set up a corporation that does work in Turkey as a subcontracting company rather than in an employee-employer relationship. Any of the actions you propose to evade Turkish income taxes would constitute criminal tax fraud and could lead to you and the payroll officials at your employer's company who were complicit in allowing you to attempt to evade Turkish taxes spending time in a Turkish prison. Then you'd be deported. And, of course, you'd be fired probably as soon as you were criminally charged. The U.S. would cooperate with Turkey in pursuing you, your employer and your employer's payroll officials, although I don't know how the Kuwaiti government would respond.
european-union (germany, spain, uk) The cookie consent law is the ePrivacy directive, which was implemented as national laws by all EU member states (including, at the time, the UK). Later, GDPR changed the applicable definition of consent so that implicit consent is no longer allowed. A notice in fine print as in the given example is not sufficient to meet this definition of consent, so any non-necessary cookies set in that context would be a violation. But it would be the national ePrivacy implementation that would be violated, not the GDPR. Thus, the GDPR's famous 4%/EUR 20M fines are not relevant here. Instead, each country can set its own fines. In Germany, this would probably be up to EUR 50k (§16 TMG) though German law doesn't implement this aspect of ePrivacy correctly. In the UK, PECR penalties are determined by more general data protection penalty legislation. Notable instances of cookie consent enforcement include the Planet 49 (ECJ judgement, German BGH verdict) case which basically affirmed that yes, the GDPR's definition of consent applies. Thus, any case law regarding GDPR consent is also applicable to the issue of cookies. Furthermore, the Spanish AEPD has issued an interesting fine due to insufficient cookie consent, but due to much more subtle violations than the outright disregard in the given example. E.g. in the Vueling action (decision (Spanish, PDF), summary, listing on enforcementtracker), the Vueling airline's website had a consent banner but ultimately told the user to reject cookies via their browser settings. This violates the requirement that consent must be specific/granular, since the browser settings are all-or-nothing if they're available at all. The airline was fined EUR 30k, the maximum possible under applicable Spanish data protection law. But what kind of risks would some blog run into that just sets cookies without appropriate consent? If the service is outside of the EU, enforcement is difficult. I am not aware of cookie consent enforcement against non-EU services. National data protection authorities can investigate the violation and issue fines, subject to their respective national data protection laws. They generally only do this when there are lots of complaints. Some authorities like the UK ICO have indicated that cookie consent enforcement isn't a priority for them. Independently, individuals can generally sue the service for damages. Some lawyers might send out cease and desist letters to non-compliant websites in the hopes of collecting fees. So aside from the last point, the risk is likely somewhat low, especially for a smaller site. At this point, it is worth reminding that ePrivacy/GDPR doesn't require consent for all cookies, and is not just limited to cookies. It is more generally about access to and storage of information on a user's device, unless that access is strictly necessary to provide the service explicitly requested by the user. Thus, functional cookies can be set without consent. However, consent does become necessary when cookies or similar mechanisms are used for analytics, tracking, or ads. Even though GDPR is involved, the cookie consent requirements apply regardless of whether the cookies involve any personal data.
The registration office does not have access to your GEZ bill. They cannot deny you deregistration, but also cannot tell you whether your debts are settled. You might prefer to clarify this matter with the GEZ in writing rather than over phone, since you can more easily machine-translate an email or letter.