Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.
B.N. writes: My wife and I booked BA tickets from Gatwick to Trinidad through agents Travel Unravel.
We reluctantly agreed to a total price of £1,938 after being assured this was the cheapest flight available.
Within an hour, our daughter and her friend told us they had booked direct with BA for £1,502.
We asked Travel Unravel to cancel or give us a refund, but were told that ‘flight prices are dynamic’.
Tony Hetherington replies: Travel Unravel Holidays Private Limited – to give the company its official name – is registered to an address in Harrow in north-west London, but I could not actually find it there. It told Companies House that it has three employees, which includes its directors. However, in a separate filing, it says it has three directors, all living in India. So, no UK employees, which might explain why some Travel Unravel customers believe they have really been dealing with a call centre in India, and not a travel agent in Harrow.
Watching brief: Travel Unravel refused to cancel or give a refund for the booking, but said that ‘flight prices are dynamic’
I did think that BA would be concerned about the idea that a travel agent might act like a ticket tout, but it shrugged its corporate shoulders and told me that the price charged for its tickets is set by the travel agent, not by BA.
At least this explains the online complaints from people who, like you, have been charged hundreds of pounds over the odds by Travel Unravel.
Naturally, I invited Travel Unravel to comment. I also asked where it was genuinely based. There was no comment, and no reply.
However, two days after I told the company we were publishing your complaint, out of the blue you received an email from someone who gave his name simply as Colin. He wrote: ‘After reviewing the details of your case, I would like to offer a refund of £575, along with an additional £200 as compensation for the inconvenience caused.’ You have told me the money has reached your bank account, which is great news.
Colin has also offered a £100 discount on your next flight, but I suspect you will find it easy to resist this.
Is my £11,000 for grave sites dead and buried?
C.S. writes: I purchased six burial plots for £11,100 from Regent Memorial Ltd as an investment.
The company has gone into administration and the administrators are treating investors as having invested in the company itself. We all purchased exclusive rights of burial in designated plots.
If the cemetery is sold to someone else, our right of burial would need to be transferred.
Rest in peace: Regent Memorial has gone into administration and the administrators are treating investors as having invested in the company itself
Tony Hetherington replies: Regent Memorial has been an investment catastrophe waiting to happen. When an investor first asked me to look into the company eight years ago, I warned that the 3,000 plots at its cemetery in Farnham in Surrey were marketed at questionable prices and with dubious claims.
One sales firm acting for Regent Memorial advertised a 40 per cent return on investment in just 18 months or so. Another claimed: ‘You will receive within 24 to 36 months a minimum contracted return on investment of 37.50 per cent.’ They were all lying, of course. When I contacted Regent Memorial director Kamran Saleem, he told me his sales agents used their own predictions, and promotional material warned that salesmen’s claims were not binding. Saying, in short, that nobody should rely on anything his own sales agents claimed.
Despite this, he was confident that a national shortage of cemetery plots would work in his favour. And he had inside influence too, as his father headed the biggest Muslim funeral service in Birmingham. In fact, in 2023 Saleem scrapped the original plan for a multi-religion burial ground, and decided to reserve the cemetery exclusively for Muslims. But guess what – not a single burial has ever taken place!
And now Regent Memorial has fallen into administration. Normally, administrators issue a Statement of Affairs, setting out a company’s assets and liabilities, but no statement has been issued, apparently because the administrators have had trouble getting information from Saleem. Their estimated figures show that the company owes over £6 million. The really bad news, as you found, is that the administrators have been advised by their lawyers that investors have no rights. The lawyers say the wording of your agreement simply allows you to sell on to a new buyer the right to be buried at the cemetery, but you have no title to your slice of the land.
This is not what Saleem’s salesmen told plot buyers, of course. And the sales agreement assured buyers that their money would be held in a special account. I asked Saleem to say what happened to this money. He failed to respond.
All you can do is wait for the administrators to issue clearer figures. They told me: ‘This is an incredibly complex case that requires significant investigative work to fully understand the affairs of the company and the nature of the agreements that creditors entered into.’
I hope the investigative work reveals where the money went, because right now Saleem’s silence makes it seem you paid over £11,000 and got nothing, not even a hole in the ground.
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
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