Thank you for your question.

You may be covered under your credit card assuming that the animal was not as contracted by you.

Paying for goods or services by credit card is now a major part of daily life, with many people preferring this method of payment to using cash or cheques. An advantage of using a credit card is that, under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, customers who have a claim against a supplier for breach of contract or misrepresentation will generally have an equal claim against the card issuer.

Claims are also often made against the card issuer when the supplier has gone out of business or disappeared. Firms will sometimes tell customers that they must first get a court judgment against the supplier. That is wrong. The customer can choose whether to claim against the supplier, the card issuer, or both.

For section 75 to apply, certain conditions must be met. Most credit card purchases will be covered, but:

the cash price of the goods or services must be more than £100 and not more than £30,000; and
purchases are not covered if they are made by debit cards or by charge cards (where the monthly bill has to be settled in full).
Also, section 75 only applies if the credit has been provided under a "pre-existing arrangement" that involves both the supplier and the credit provider. So credit cards are covered because suppliers are signed up by one firm (called the "acquirer") to accept cards belonging to the relevant network – such as Mastercard or Visa. The arrangement involves both the supplier and firms that issue cards through that network.

However, credit card cheques are not covered because they can be made payable to anyone – not just to the suppliers appointed to accept the credit card. And the credit card company would not share liability if the card was used to withdraw cash to pay for the purchase.

Section 75 does not, in itself, provide grounds for a claim against a supplier. Customers must have a valid claim of breach of contract or misrepresentation under other law, such as the Sale of Goods Act. If the cat was sold to you a being healthy and able to breed then there would appear to be a breach of contract. If you do have a claim against the breeder, then you have a like claim against the card provider for the full amount of the claim.

The claim is not limited to the amount of the credit card transaction. Customers can claim for all losses caused by the breach of contract or misrepresentation. And this applies even if all they paid by credit card was the deposit.

However, you need to establish that thou have a claim for breach of contract or misrepresentation. This is straightforward if the customer has paid for goods or services that have not been provided at all. It is not so straightforward if the claim is that the goods were not of a satisfactory quality, or not as described to the customer.

You should also know that whether section 75 applies to transactions abroad is a matter of dispute.

HSBC, Bank of Scotland and Sainsbury’s Bank have agreed with the Office of Fair Trading that they will apply section 75 to transactions abroad. Other card issuers will not. The argument is due to be resolved by the courts, as the Office of Fair Trading, Lloyds TSB Bank and Tesco Personal Finance have applied to the High Court for a declaration on whether section 75 applies to foreign transactions.

However I think you should submit a claim at this stage to your card provider.

I hope this helps. Please leave a positive response so that I am credited for my time.