TravelFX beware of punitive cancellation charges

A question about : TravelFX beware of punitive cancellation charges

A salutary tale about my experience with TravelFX which may be of interest.

On the Thursday 22nd January 2015 I ordered some currency online with TravelFX. The money was taken from bank account at approximately 14.30. According to the company’s terms and conditions orders received after midday will be actioned the following day.

At 14.15 on Friday 23rd January, almost twenty four hours after money was taken from my bank account I received notification that my order was about to be dispatched. I was concerned that delivery would not be made on time so I contacted TravelFX by phone only to be informed that this would indeed be the case as they 'had been let down by suppliers and run out of stock'. The money would be sent out on Monday 26th January for delivery on Tuesday 27th January. This was of little use as it was required by my son who was departing for his holiday on Sunday 26th January.

As the money would not arrive in time, as stated on my order, I had no alternative to cancel and charged a punitive fee of Ј93.81 on an order of Ј702.59. I spoke with one of the managers at TravelFX, but he was totally intransigent and unsympathetic to my request for the cancellation fee to be waived/reduced and continually bombarded me with the phrase ‘terms & conditions’. These are both confusing and contradictory! At no time was I advised of the high cost of cancellation.

My concerns are:

if TravelFX had acted on my order in a timely fashion, cancellation would not be necessary.
to run out of stock is no excuse
they are profiting excessively from a cancellation charge, surely a common currency like the Euros could easily have been used for another client.

Best answers:

• You clearly had alternatives to simply cancelling your order, selling back the Euros would have saved you quite a bit of money.