Have you been overcharged, struggled to get a refund, dealt with poor customer service or spotted something consumers should know about? Get in touch with us in the comments or emailconsumeraffairs@telegraph.co.uk*.
Students who paid thousands for gap years and internships have been left in the lurch following the collapse of a tour operator.
Global Vision International (GVI) offered students the chance to live and work in one of more than 20 conservation research stations across the globe, from the rainforests of Peru to the coral reefs of the Seychelles.
But on July 1, school leavers and university students were told the company had collapsed into liquidation. Trips of a lifetime were cancelled, with no refunds offered.
Amy Taylor, a 21-year-old student at the University of Salford and one of a number of those who lost out, said: “My heart genuinely sank to my stomach.”
She paid £4,557 for a placement in South Africa, drawn in by the chance to work with lions, elephants and giraffes. “It was beyond words,” she said.
She spent her second year of university saving as much as possible, working a job in retail and forgoing family holidays and parties.
Emily Cairncross, 20, is another victim. She was scheduled to take part in a two-week work placement in Peru this August, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
An engineering student at the University of Oxford, she said she wanted “to do something that helps sustainability”.
But she was left some £2,000 out of pocket through programme fees paid to GVI, as well as fees she has paid to its former local partners in Peru so she can still go and complete a similar programme.
“I had to find the extra money to get that once-in-a-lifetime experience, I had my heart so set on it.”
Her father, David Cairncross, said that it was “hugely frustrating” to hear of dozens of other students in a similar situation.
“Young people have it very tough, with huge student loans and not many job prospects. It feels like they’ve just been exploited,” he said.
GVI said that it was a “deeply sad” situation, but students have questioned why it was accepting bookings and taking deposits right up until it went into liquidation.
One Australian student, Christine Zhou, received an offer for a marine conservation internship in Mexico, complete with a 20pc grant. This was the day before the firm went into liquidation on June 30.
Ms Zhou paid her deposit of $1,495 AUD (£775.89) just before midnight that day.
She said she was “deeply angry”, adding: “It’s left me in the dark trying to get back my hard-earned savings from a liquidated company.”
Former employees told The Telegraph that staff had been urged to chase participants for payments as recently as June 30.
Ilona da Cruz Gerngross, a former science programme co-ordinator at GVI’s Costa Rica site, said that staff had been told of financial troubles, but said that liquidation came as a “shock”.
Others described the panic at their bases when the company announced the immediate closure of all programmes, which Ms da Cruz Gerngross said “undermined everyone’s safety”.
Staff there stayed on in Costa Rica for two days to ensure that participants, mostly in their 20s, could travel home safely.
Despite this, Ms da Cruz Gerngross claimed that employees at her site were not paid part of their salaries for the month of June and that they were looking to pursue the money through the liquidators.
“It has been extremely overwhelming,” she said.
For the indigenous communities who provided food and accommodation for GVI staff and interns, a vital income stream has dried up too.
In a statement Andrew Valentine, the chief executive, said the company was “devastated” that its closure “affected customers, staff, suppliers and creditors in this way”.
He said that, following the advice of insolvency practitioners, it continued as usual until it became clear the business could “no longer meet its obligations” and ceased trading.
He added that he realised the experience would have been “very unsettling” for the 60 participants overseas when the company folded and that he “particularly regrets” the impact on its programme partners.
*Please note that by submitting your content to us, you are consenting to The Telegraph processing your personal data where required by law. For further details, please see our<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/contact-us/readers-submission-privacy-notice/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>Privacy Notice.
