Huge call costs - what are my legal rights to claim back in Court?

[Jackisin]

Hello all,

During Covid, holidaying in the States, our flight back was cancelled and we had to call the airline multiple times.

The reason for the multiple calls was that over those days their phonelines were not working properly, and there were also ridiculous hold times where nobody answered for an hour before line just died. This is all evidenced on social media. Also, working from home, numerous of their employees were answering then hanging up the calls.

Several of the employees were also super unhelpful and two hung up on me when I finally got through and voiced my sheer exasperation over the mounting call costs.

I have 32 calls on my phonebill, totalling over £500.

So I want to recover these costs. Started a claim which has provoked a response from the Judge asking for details particulars and legal argument - "whether in tort, contract or statute, and what damages you seek."

I would have said this was breach of contract for not enabling me to carry out the changes necessary as per contract, and the sheer negligence frustrating my attempts to do so. It is of course forseeable by them that call costs would occur, as I was in another country at the time, flown outwards with them.

Can anyone help me with this? Want to make sure.

Thank you

[Jackisin]

des8 ? R0b ?

[R0b]

Can you post up the contents of the court order so we can see what is being asked?

One thing that catches out consumers is that the law does not provide a remedy for everything, so if you bring a claim it must be based on a legally recognised cause of action e.g. breach of contract, negligence etc.

On the face of it, I'm not sure you have a claim at all but first of all who is the airline? Are you claiming or have you claimed any compensation under the EU Regulation for cancelled flights?

[Jackisin]

Airline is BA.

Order states: "file and serve a CPR compliant POC detailing course of action, whether it to be pursuant to contract, statute or tort, and what damages are sought related to that cause of action."

I made a DPA request to them 6 months ago to get the call recordings. Had two dozen emails telling me the email requesting such were opened. Then 6 months later, after chasing it up and being constantly ignored, they told me they hadn't seen my emails. Demonstrably a lie.

They then took another 6 weeks to get the DSAR to me after starting my request, as per their lies. Was meant to be 30 days.

They said "no call recordings available, as only retained for 6 months" lol. Obvs a cover-up therefore.

I have my phone bill showing 32 calls.

Surely there must be a case here? Under the DPA breach, or because they made it impossible for me to have them carry out the changes, etc as per the contract? Damages followed from the second totally unnecessary phone call on.

Am I entitled to use the EU cancelled flight legislation for things other than the set compensation for delay? Like call costs? Can they be included in the overall maximum compensation?

I also tried Twitter and Facebook to get BA to help me, telling them I was abroad and call costs were substantial. They responded once on Twitter, then did not respond to a further five messages over the next week, and indeed never responded again, and they responded on Facebook to tell me I had to call them.

[Jackisin]

R0b Negligence, maybe?

[Jackisin]

Anyone have an idea?

[Jackisin]

Help!!! des8 ? R0b ? Anyone?

[des8]

Sorry, but I don't see where you have a claim.
You suggest a breach of contract, but haven't indicated what section of the contract you think was breached.

[R0b]

You need to be patient, we all have other jobs and things to respond to, but like Des has said, I am struggling to see where a claim might be.

Let's start with the DPA point. You might have an argument that they failed in their statutory duty and compensation should be awarded for frustration and inconvenience and possibly deliberate attempts to prevent the handover of calls. However, that is not what you are claiming, you are claiming £500 for call costs and far as i can see, the two are not interlinked.

Negligence is a no go since you cannot claim for pure economic losses unless there has been a negligent misstatement or professional negligence (not applicable here).

That leaves breach of contract. The only thing I can think of that might come close is failure to provide the services with reasonable care and skill. Making 32 calls would seem high assuming most if not all related to hanging up, not answering etc. I believe some airlines have passenger charters in addition to the T&Cs so you may be able to argue that the charter (if BA have one) formed part of the contract.

Having said all of that, you did not explain the reason why you needed to call BA - why did you? Could you have avoided the calls by rebooking via the website or their app?

Not a lot more I can add. Unless you can find something concrete to argue like the only way to rebook was to give them a call and BA failed to give any local number or something like that, your claim seems to be weak at best.

[Jackisin]

Thank you both, I appreciate your help V. much.