In August 2025, I commissioned a bespoke £3,077 wig from Raoul, a London wig maker. It required a deposit of £1,455.
When the wig was finished in November, I paid the balance and took it home but felt that the product was not as promised, either in colour or fit.
The salon made three adjustments but it was still not a match and slid about on my head. It offered further alterations, but I just wanted a refund.
I applied for a chargeback on the debit card used for the purchase via my bank, NatWest.
But it only returned £1,622, saying I wasn’t eligible to get the original deposit back because I’d made it in August last year and this was too long ago. Please help.
A.S., Beckenham, Kent
Brush off: A reader has been denied a full refund after spending over £3,000 on a wig that was the wrong colour and did not fit properly
You decided to order a bespoke wig to give yourself a confidence boost as your hair was thinning. You travelled into central London for three fittings, but when the final wig was presented, it still wasn’t right.
The individual hair strands were thicker than your own, and more of a white-blonde than your muted beige tones.
The salon dyed the wig and tweaked the hairpiece, but you said it came back a yellow colour and still slipped. The salon offered to make yet more tweaks, but by this point you simply wanted your money back.
Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, any purchase must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and match what the customer asked for. An item can be rejected within 30 days if it does not match the agreed description.
After 30 days have passed, and up to six months, the retailer must be given the chance to repair or replace it.
If this fails, the customer can ask for a discount or a refund. You gave the salon several opportunities to make modifications, but it was still not what you wanted and so you requested your money back.
When the salon declined, you returned the wig in May and raised a chargeback.
The bank typically returns the money to a customer straight away and gives the retailer the chance to dispute the request.
If the retailer defends its position successfully, the refund can be clawed back. If the request isn’t challenged within 30 or 45 days, depending on the card issuer, the customer keeps the refund.
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There is usually a time limit of 120 days from the date of the transaction. NatWest clearly looked at the date you made your deposit and decided it could not ask the retailer’s bank to reverse the full transaction sum.
You argued that it was not your fault that the whole wig making and tweaking process took so long.
I thought you had a strong case, as there can be leeway over when the clock starts ticking on a chargeback dispute when the goods are paid for well in advance of delivery. I asked NatWest to reopen your dispute.
It decided your claim was refused in error. The remaining £1,455 was refunded and the bank sent you a hamper of goodies as an apology.
NatWest says: ‘We are very sorry that, on this occasion, we fell short of the standards that our customers expect and rightly deserve.
We have now refunded Mrs S in full and have taken steps to address the issues identified and strengthen our processes to help ensure this does not happen again.’
A spokesman for Raoul says: ‘Throughout our bespoke fitting process, we check the fit with the client at each stage and would not knowingly allow a client to leave with a fit that we felt was inappropriate.
‘The purpose of the multiple consultations and fitting appointments is specifically to ensure that the client is happy with the product and that any necessary adjustments can be made before the process is completed.
We are therefore disappointed to hear that Mrs S ultimately felt that the wig was unsatisfactory.
However, we believe we made reasonable efforts to address the concerns that were raised with us and offered a further opportunity to return to the salon, which she declined.’
Since retirement, my wife and I have travelled to various parts of the world, using a Travelex prepaid Mastercard currency card for our spending.
This worked well until May this year when someone somehow used my card to convert money to Japanese yen and spend the £183 balance.
After weeks of chasing, Mastercard denied my claim for a refund, saying the payments could not be deemed fraudulent as they were made from an Apple device that had received an authorisation code. I have never owned an Apple device.
D.T., Preston, Lancashire
You had just returned from an enjoyable trip to Tenerife and realised that you still had some money left on your card.
You decided to use the Travelex prepaid card for some spending at home, at a couple of pubs and to make an online purchase.
But when you went to pay to refuel your car, the £95 transaction was denied. You thought this odd as you knew you had £183 left.
When you checked your Travelex app you found that someone had converted the balance into 22,000 yen and spent it with contactless payment services for public transport in Japan, where you have never been.
At first the payments were just pending, but Travelex said it could not stop them. You phoned and spent 40 minutes answering questions before being told to email the details to customer services.
You did this but heard nothing for weeks, but finally the claim was rejected. Mastercard said the payments had been authorised using a code sent to the phone making the transactions. You never received any code.
Consumer protections with such cards mean unauthorised spending should be quickly reimbursed if reported swiftly, as it was in your case.
I contacted Travelex. It escalated the complaint but also passed me on to Mastercard, as it is the network behind its prepaid card, and Mastercard refunded your losses, plus £6 in charges. It also paid £100 in compensation.
It is not clear how a fraudster got hold of your card details.
Whichever way it was done, the details were likely manually added to the crook’s Apple Wallet, enabling them to spend your money.
In general, to keep card details as safe as possible, it’s best to never let a card out of sight and to cover a keypad when tapping in a Pin code.
Consider not saving card details on retail websites.
Straight to the point
In March my wife and I flew from Scotland to the Isle of Man with Loganair for £570, but our flight home was cancelled.
There were no returns to Edinburgh so we accepted a replacement to Birmingham with transport home.
But upon arriving in Birmingham, there were no details of how we were supposed to get home.
We ended up booking another flight that evening and paid £269.94. I submitted a claim for this but have heard nothing.
G.S., Edinburgh.
Since my intervention, Loganair has offered you £220 each – the statutory compensation for a cancelled flight – or 28,500 Loganair points instead.
It hasn’t confirmed whether it will refund you for the flight home.
My husband went to Tesco to buy me a new mobile phone. He gave them my PAC number and insisted that I needed to keep my number.
But we later realised Tesco had transferred my phone number to his phone in error and given me a new one.
He went back to Tesco four times but my old number still hasn’t been returned.
J.G., via email.
Tesco Mobile apologises and says it is working to rectify the error.
In June my cousin and I booked a Tui package holiday, with a flight back to the UK with a different airline. This flight was cancelled due to staffing issues.
We arranged our own flight back to Stansted, even though our original £277.86. However, Tui have only refunded us £224.94.
G.M., via email.
TUI says it phoned you after the flight was cancelled to discuss flight options only to find you had arranged your own flight back.
As you had done this, it refunded you the cost of your original flight.
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