It pays to be clued up and play your CPA trump card

Five years on, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that for most consumers, the Consumer Protection Act may as well not exist, because they don’t know anything about the legislation and how to make it work for them.

Even I almost missed something when investigating the case of Sharon Chetty of Pietermaritzburg and the cruise she cancelled.

On February 16, she booked an Italian cruise with UK-based Imagine Cruising for her and her Joburg-based sister, scheduled to depart in mid-July. The cost was R20210 each, including flights.

Chetty paid her R20210, which was accepted as a deposit on the booking for both of them.

But two days later, she cancelled the booking as her sister was no longer able to join her, and she was told she wouldn't be getting a cent of that deposit back, as Imagine Cruising’s most generous cancellation penalty is a 50% refund, not of the deposit, but of the entire fare.

In response to my argument that that wasn’t reasonable in Chetty’s case, given that she cancelled the booking just three days after making it, Imagine Cruising director Peter Shanks then offered to refund Sandra R10460.

That would have been the end of it, had a perfectly timed marketing e-mail from Imagine Cruising not landed in my inbox.

I probably would have deleted the “spam” – unsolicited marketing – had I not mistaken the e-mail as a response to my media query.

But having clicked it open and realising it was an advert for a cruise, I had an a-ha moment about Chetty’s case.

I hadn’t, until then, thought to ask her how she came to make that booking – did she initiate an internet search, or respond to an advert in a newspaper, or did she book after receiving an unsolicited e-mail, such as the one I’d just got?

Turns out she got an e-mail – one of many – from Imagine Cruising. In fact, she got one about the Italy cruise just a few days before she made the booking.

That made the booking a direct marketing deal, and the CPA allows consumers to cancel direct marketing deals within five business days, in writing, for a full refund.

So I went back to Shanks to say that Chetty was actually owed a full refund of her R20210.

I’m delighted to report that she’s getting it.

“We do comply with the CPA provision of a five-day ‘cooling off’ period for direct marketing,” Shanks said.

“We have sent direct marketing communications to Sandra Chetty in the past, so while we did not have this booking tracked as a response to direct marketing – but rather a Google inquiry – we are prepared to waiver the loss of deposit on this occasion as the cancellation was only two days subsequent to the booking and it could be that previous direct marketing had influenced the decision to book.”

So, if you buy anything as a result of direct marketing: SMS, e-mail, phone call – including getting a call to “upgrade” your cellphone contract – you get five business days in which to cancel, in writing, for a full refund.

You don’t need to give a reason – you simply get to change your mind.

Interestingly, Imagine Cruising has only had one other request for a CPA direct marketing cancellation in the last 18 months, which says volumes about consumer awareness of this provision.