Home-Based Travel Agent - September 2007 - (Page 30)

Continued from page 29 after you.Your negligence cannot be shielded entirely with this consumer disclosure notice if you are negligent. The insurance waiver forms, also found on the www. travellaw.com web site,can be utilized if a customer declines your offer of travel protection; however, this may not be a defensive argument that will protect you in court. A third line of protection is errors and omissions insurance. Unfortunately, these services are being provided by a company with a near-monopoly control of the market. Results of combining different carriers are higher costs and less protection for you, the travel agent. Remember, if you have assets to protect, you may wish to research policies for your own protection. cedure of obtaining both the traveler’s and the consumer’s signature for the disclosure notice. Maybe you even want to draft in additional specific terms for services that you do not guarantee and/or will not be providing. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as the medical and legal professions have learned. The travel industry would be wise to act on this saying. Openings for Being Sued State, federal and international laws are organized around jurisdiction and venue concepts that place restrictions on where you can sue a person. This is the reason some passengers might bring you into a lawsuit after their honeymoon in Cancun went sour and they cannot get jurisdiction in Mexico:They will try to sue you where the contract was made. Then, as you have represented to them that your agency is merely the conduit for the sale of a resort stay, and that you did not have any warnings about the troubles the honeymooners faced (as happened to the many agents who sold and got burned by Sun Trips), you should not be responsible for millions of dollars in attorney fees, as we saw concerning Leon Klinghoffer in the Achille Lauro Lines vs. Chasser, et al. case that went up to the U.S. Supreme Court. While the case against you should be dismissed, in reality the dilemma of “how much justice can you afford” means that it is going to cost you money to defend yourself, unless you have Preventive Legal Alexander Anolik trademarked the term “Preventive Legal Care®” Identifying Problem Clients There are tale-tell signs in your business that you may want to consider with your practice of Preventive Legal Care®. I am sure you are familiar with certain problem customers that come into your office, challenging you and making difficult demands, and it is at this point that you have to remind yourself,“Life is too short, and why do I want to take on this extra risk?” For example, you may have had the pleasure of serving Mr. or Ms. Know-ItAll. When you see him or her begin to record all of the conversations they are having with you about the tour by putting a tape recorder on your desk or by turning on their Palm Pilot or mp3 player to record every word, you have a choice of not servicing that customer. As it turns out sometimes, Mr. or Ms. Know-It-All may be an attorney. Now, I cannot ask you to refuse to sell to attorneys, because this would be discrimination, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have some kind of protection from them. You have a choice of sending that person to a different travel agent in town or you can make sure that you always implement the pro- A page from Anolik’s web site, TravelLaw.com 30 Care® policies in place.The theory of law to sue you on would be that you as an agent should have known that this was a flaky resort with problems in the past, and therefore you made an error in booking it, opening the possibility of negligence. Here, your errors and omissions policy that you were wise enough to purchase ahead of time will have to defend you, whether you were right or wrong. Only in California is there a Consumer Legal Remedies Act that allows the plaintiff to sue in small claims court without an attorney, regardless of where the defendant resides.You can use this tool if you have a California connection and you need to go after a tour operator, carrier or destination operator that might owe you money because your negotiations with them have failed. In a nutshell, Preventive Legal Care® means that many problems related to legal rights can be pre-empted by putting yourself in a protected position and being prepared with the proper understanding of the law. Risk management mandates that you use Preventive Legal Care® yourselves, so you will be prepared if and when you get the first nasty HB attorney letter. Home-BasedTravelAgent SEPTEMBER 2007 http://www.travellaw.com http://www.travellaw.com http://TravelLaw.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Home-Based Travel Agent - September 2007

Contents Editor's Note - Last-Minute Travel Publisher's Note - Communication is Key Your Lifeline Agent Spotlight Your Technology Industry News Hot Deals Home-Based Networking Preventing Legal Woes Destinations: Turkey Cover Story: Walking Ireland Destinations: Caribbean Destinations: Boston Cruises: Forecast Hotels Tours New Products

Home-Based Travel Agent - September 2007

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