Booking.com - what a scam

Thats actually sad, as used Booking.com loads of times and you trust their reviews. Glad that you managed to get your money back!
 
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Diddums said:
If only the reason for the fuss was written down somewhere ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I did read your post, but tbh it didn't make much sense.

You booked the hotel, and then afterwards asked your wife to look into it. That's a bit of an arse about face way of doing it, isn't it?

In addition to that, you evidently didn't use an option to pay in arrival or free cancellation, which are often offered.

Furthermore, the whole Pakistan businessman thing has now been struck through, so presumably that's tosh.

So basically my take is you badly researched a hotel stay, paid for it on a non cancellation basis, got in a strop when you realised your mistake and rushed to the Internet to badmouth booking.com.

Is that about right?

It should be. Booking.com have certified me as a genius. That's official.
 
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bainbridge said:
I did read your post, but tbh it didn't make much sense.

You booked the hotel, and then afterwards asked your wife to look into it. That's a bit of an arse about face way of doing it, isn't it?

In addition to that, you evidently didn't use an option to pay in arrival or free cancellation, which are often offered.

Furthermore, the whole Pakistan businessman thing has now been struck through, so presumably that's tosh.

So basically my take is you badly researched a hotel stay, paid for it on a non cancellation basis, got in a strop when you realised your mistake and rushed to the Internet to badmouth booking.com.

Is that about right?

It should be. Booking.com have certified me as a genius. That's official.
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Your inability to read is commendable, I'll give you that :cry:
 
I usually try to book direct with where we stay, which is sometimes much cheaper than the others and if that fails, will use BC and so far haven't run into any issues.
 
I've been using them for years without an issue, and always found them the cheapest thanks to the genius discount. I also booked a flight via them as was cheaper than going direct to the airline. Hope it'll be ok!
 
Diddums said:
Despite me freezing my CC, the payment is showing as pending today.

They're now 21 hours past their self-imposed "we'll get back to you within 24 hours" message. I also have no way of escalating this with them, so I've raised it with HSBC as a fraudulent transaction.

I will fight this to the death if I have to. They will not out-Karen me.
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Do you have their address? I assume you do?... You know the rest!
 
Diddums said:
We've been using Booking.com for years, never had any issues. Booked a hotel this weekend as it had an 8.3 rating on the site, and is the second highest scoring hotel in the area that I could find.

Sent link to wife who looked in to it more, and found that on other sites, the hotel is basically a rundown dump that would make a 3rd world country blush. The reviews are spectacularly crap:

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Messaged the hotel not even 20 minutes after booking to cancel, "soz lol thanks for the monies" came the automatic reply. Rang them up, took four attempts before someone answered the phone, explained that the booking was made in error, "soz lol thanks for the monies".

So I started digging in to this, and found that this hotel is not only stuffing its reviews with fake one-word perfect score reviews, but they're also writing reviews in the names of people who stayed there.
I messaged Booking.com, didn't get a response, and then raised a complaint. Effectively I've booked a hotel based on their fraudulent scores, and the hotel doesn't give a toss, and wants to keep the money.

Fortunately the payment hadn't been taken yet so I've just frozen that card, but I started digging. Turns out Booking.com has been sold to some chap in Pakistan who now runs the place, and anyone can list a hotel on there and just blag whatever they want.

Safe to say that's my last interaction with Booking.com, hopefully this helps anyone else who uses them, they are certainly not the company they used to be!
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Next time use airbnb :)
 
Booking.com is often my go to at least for researching places. As mentioned further up I only book refundable places with a credit card and often look elsewhere for better pricing

Perhaps I’ll just avoid them in future
 
Mmmmmm, strange timing! Got an email from Booking.com last night saying my hotel reservation had been amended, what hotel reservation? Did my due diligence and the email was genuine.

Went on the booking.com app and a booking had been made for a hotel named Coinbase in Scotland - wtf?

Was waiting to speak to customer services when i got another email saying the booking had been cancelled. When i went in the app, all traces of the booking had gone, not in history or past bookings etc.

I used to have a coinbase account, so have removed my card details from there and from Booking.com.

No money has gone from my account - yet.

Any ideas what has happened here?!
 
Diddums said:
Money refunded back on to my credit card, thanks HSBC. Booking.com can now remain on my Petty Karen list of companies to never touch again.
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I wouldn't say avoid, unfortunately some people just abuse it like everything. Airbnb has notoriously been a bad place for hiked prices, last minute cancellations etc.

They are connected to so many hotels world wide, and in the future in hotels - likely managing points, payments etc
 
This is a terrible shame, booking has been my go to for many years and I still do use it. In the odd case it has been cheaper (even recently) than going direct to the hotel but I have to say I only really use it for known hotel brands rather than apartments or B&B and I always now cross reference other review sources usually booking, tripadvisor and google.

OP glad you got your money back, I always use a CC online for these reasons.
 
You have to watch for third-party sellers because legally they're not covered by Section 75.

That would include booking.com, Amazon marketplace, travel agents, ebay/paypal etc etc. You need a DIRECT relationship with the vendor, otherwise its likely the card issuer will reject the claim as your contract is with the third-party seller, not the actual vendor.

I assume HSBC did a merchant chargeback in this case. Do be aware that the "seller" can dispute that and (quite legally) charge your card again.
 
Vestas said:
You have to watch for third-party sellers because legally they're not covered by Section 75.

That would include booking.com, Amazon marketplace, travel agents, ebay/paypal etc etc. You need a DIRECT relationship with the vendor, otherwise its likely the card issuer will reject the claim as your contract is with the third-party seller, not the actual vendor.

I assume HSBC did a merchant chargeback in this case. Do be aware that the "seller" can dispute that and (quite legally) charge your card again.
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I'm amazed this hasn't become illegal yet. It's effectively bypassing consumer protections by passing the buck onto the customer because they didn't pay the vendor directly.

I'm sorry but if you want to operate a platform where you act as an agent for vendors and take payments on their behalf, then you should be held accountable if the vendor doesn't deliver on their contractual obligations.
 
TrojanWhore said:
Booked a holiday recently for April and didn't think to put it on the CC.... ****
Hopefully all goes smoothly. I've used the same booking site before without issue.
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To be fair this was the only time they did us wrong, we've used them loads without issue. What made me dig my heels in was the "lol ur probs m8" attitude.
 
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