News

THE Trading Standards Institute is compiling a dossier of complaints against operators over brochure prices with a view to bringing legal action.

The consumer watchdog has approached all of its 200 regional offices to supply cases of customer complaints about supplements adding to the price of their holiday.

Trading Standards head of package holidays Bruce Treloar said: “We are getting more and more complaints over the lack of pricing transparency in brochures.”

UK trading standards offices are to supply files up until October 9, which will then be handed over to the Office of Fair Trading to investigate.

Treloar, who has already received a number of files said: “The soundings are that there is great cause for concern.”

He said he had received a good response so far from the OFT on the issue. “As long as customers come to us with complaints, we will be approaching the OFT to show the signs of consumer detriment,” he added.

Once the dossier has been submitted, the OFT has a number of courses of action it can take against operators if it decides to do so.

The first step involves urging any offending operator to change its behaviour. If this move fails, a civil action injunction, or “stop now” order, can be taken out, which, if ignored, could see operators facing contempt of court charges.

Operators have so far denied their pricing structures are causing distress among consumers, but a recent Holiday Which? report claimed supplements made it difficult for customers to determine the exact cost of their holiday (Travel Weekly September 16).

A statement issued by Holiday Which? advised consumers to make sure they had all the pricing information for their holiday when booking, and to shop around if they were not happy.