TTG spoke with three separate Global members who all had at least one example of Global releasing RCNs for values less than they claim was owed from its trust account, as well as complaining of lengthy waits to receive them.

The members, who wished to remain anonymous, all claim they had contacted tour operators about the discrepancies, only to be told the money had been released back to Global.

One agent told TTG: “It’s not Global’s money to keep and it makes us look like idiots to our clients.” Another said they had gone “weeks without acknowledgment” after querying the value of the credit notes.

A third member said: “It’s very frustrating... Global has the money and I can’t give it back to the customer until Global passes it back to me.”

Global’s managing director Andy Stark said it would be looking into the discrepancy claims, “as it doesn’t sound like something that would happen within our standard practices”.

He said in a statement: “Our biggest challenge, which we are open with our members about, is volume based. We have received around 30 times more refund requests compared to this time last year, and we have been refining our processes to try and increase the speed of actioning.

“There are many different variations in booking type, which makes the process of refunding more complex. We are refunding full amounts to customers via our members as the refund request makes its way through the process, which we know is currently not happening as quickly as we would all like it to, and we are sorry for the time it is taking.”

Alan Bowen, legal advisor to the Association of Atol Companies, suggested Global was not the only consortium accused of such a practice.

He said: “The difficulty all these agents have is that the relationship with suppliers is entirely through their HQ. 

"From a legal perspective, funds collected by agents belong either to the customer or the supplier once a confirmation invoice has been issued by an operator."