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YachtingBlacklist

Your charter deposit was not returned: what to do now

A withheld security deposit is the single most reported charter problem in this register. It is also the most recoverable, provided you act in the right order and within the deadlines that apply to card payments.

Reviewed: August 2026

Your charter deposit was not returned: what to do now

Step 1 — Ask for an itemised statement in writing

Send one email to the operator and copy the agency or platform through which you booked. Ask for a written, itemised statement of every deduction, with the corresponding entry in the handover and return protocols, photographs of the alleged damage, and the invoice or repair estimate. Give a deadline of 14 days and say that you will pursue the matter further after it expires.

Keep the tone factual. You are creating a record, and a court, a bank or a consumer authority will read it later. Do not accuse anyone of theft or fraud, and do not negotiate by telephone — if you do speak on the phone, send an email afterwards summarising what was said.

Step 2 — Start a chargeback if you paid by card

If the deposit was taken on a credit card, contact your card issuer straight away and ask about a chargeback for services not rendered or an unauthorised amount. Schemes generally require the claim within 120 days of the transaction or of the date the service should have been delivered, so this is the deadline that matters most.

A pre-authorisation that was converted into a charge without a documented cost is exactly the kind of dispute the chargeback system exists for. Provide the contract, both protocols, your photographs and the correspondence in which you asked for an itemised statement.

Cash deposits cannot be charged back. Your evidence is the receipt, so if you were never given one, say so explicitly in every subsequent letter.

Step 3 — Escalate to consumer authorities

For a charter in Croatia, complaints can be filed with the Croatian consumer protection inspectorate. If you live elsewhere in the EU, your national European Consumer Centre will take the case up with its Croatian counterpart free of charge; it is designed for exactly this cross-border situation.

Where the operator is a member of a national charter association, a complaint to the association sometimes produces a faster result than any legal route.

Step 4 — Formal legal steps

For amounts up to 5,000 euro, the European Small Claims Procedure lets a consumer sue a company in another EU member state on a standard form, in writing, usually without a lawyer. It is slow but inexpensive, and a judgment is enforceable across the EU.

Before starting, weigh the amount against your time and check whether your household or travel insurance includes legal expenses cover, which many policies do for contractual disputes abroad.

Step 5 — Document the pattern

Whatever the outcome, submit your report to this register. Individual disputes are easy for a company to dismiss; a documented series of comparable reports is what warns the next charterer and what regulators and journalists actually respond to.

Companies named in this guide

Entries in the register that illustrate the problems described above. Reports describe allegations by consumers, not findings of a court.

Important disclaimer

Yachting Blacklist publishes complaints submitted by private consumers. Entries describe allegations and consumer experiences, not findings of a court or a public authority, and are not an accusation of criminal conduct. Every company named here may request a correction of factual errors and may submit a statement, which we publish in full alongside the entry.