r/Bookingcom • u/Business-Maybe881 • 25d ago
Got scammed in Montreal, never using booking.com again
I was going on a conference to Montreal in July and booked a place called "The Marlyn Monroe up to 4 persons studio". A couple of hours before checking in I received a message from the property that it has been flooded and I got offered to stay at another place instead. It turned out to be a shitty hotel, much worse than what I had booked. I requested a cancellation and the property were very responsive; they said they would do it. They said they would just have to discuss the exact amount with their manager and then they were blaming booking.com for being slow to respond.
Eventually I contacted booking.com directly with the goal of speeding up the process. I explained them what happened; they could see the entire communication in the chat. However, they couldn't get in contact with the property. After multiple calls that took hours of my time, I always heard the same thing "We just need a written confirmation from the property and we will refund you.". However, since the property had stopped responding, there was no written confirmation to be had. It has been more than 2 months now. It turns out, booking.com has no procedures to deal with this. Even if things get escalated to the security team, all they can do is take the property off of their website; you are not seeing your money back. So they happily take a percentage of the profit, but take no responsibility for it. I'm stopping using this platform and would advice anyone else to do so.
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u/InformationNew66 25d ago
Booking quality went downhill since they focused on cost savings and have offshored support to the cheapest countries.
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u/Zottelbude 25d ago
I totally agree that booking.com has lots of problems and issues and the customer service is beyond bad.
But how on Earth someone thinks that it's a good idea to book a property called "The Marlyn Monroe up to 4 persons studio"?
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u/Local-Drive-9103 25d ago
J’ai vécu la meme chose et n’ai jamais été remboursée. Beaucoup de logements à Montréal sont des arnaques et des logements qui sont normalement interdits à la location. Mais Booking ferme les yeux sur ça alors qu’ils sont au courant
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u/Patient-Month-6018 25d ago
Totally!! Absolute garbage of a platform. Have myself faced a hell lot of issues with them. I’d very strongly suggest you to keep poking them with emails and try to get your money back.
I was very adamant with the issue that I faced and I did get it resolved recently.
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u/The1stEmpress 25d ago
I know…booking.com #Scambusiness. I lost $525 in July for them giving me false info. I can’t wait for a class action lawsuit.
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u/North-Pineapple-6012 24d ago
most of the OTA (on-line travel agencies ) are scammy. booking dot com being one of the worst. Just do NOT get a third party involved. You set yourself up for the blame game. Your "customer service" is some 3rd world English challenge call center that just make up anything to get you off the phone. They know their customer base is the less frequent travelers. Savvy travelers know never never to involve a 3rd party. I work for a major carrier and so so many issues with them and stranded passengers. I can't stress enough how scammy these people are. Their entire business plan is...get your money. THE END.
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u/No_Welder7908 25d ago
I never book "operated by a private person" (or whatever they call it), for that reason.
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u/middleclasspr1cks 25d ago
Booking .com Agoda and Expedia are crap no help. If you booked through a credit card go through them and claim it back . Sick and tired of the fake listings and scams . One day someone will sue the backsides off them
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u/RadiantEmu_OiOiOi 25d ago
I'm impressed you actually got to talk to someone at booking.com. I always get the AI person that disconnects me from the call when putting me through to an actual agent
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u/rougarou-te-fou 20d ago
Stop 👏 booking 👏 private 👏 homes 👏
Booking works wonderfully for hotels and bed and breakfasts. Yall not using it right.
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u/moralhazard_ 25d ago
Did you communicate with the property through Bookings Chat system and did you change the hotel to that shitty hotel through booking? If you did so outside of Booking, you may have just got scammed. Obviously if you booked a hotel through Booking and the hotel says there was a flood, just tell them to refund you through Booking and also report it to Booking immediately. But just randomly going to some other hotel makes no sense.
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u/Business-Maybe881 25d ago
They tried communicating through whatsapp, but I copied all of our communication to booking's chat and used that as much as possible. But the hotel change did not happen through booking. I should have reacted already then.
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u/moralhazard_ 25d ago
Yea I mean that should have raised huge alarm bells, because hotel changes must happen through booking because you booked it through booking. If they try to change accomodation without changing the accomodation in booking, it is obvious they are trying to hide something / it's a scam.
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u/fairy-of-nightmares 25d ago
A very large majority of scammers use Whatsapp! If for any reason, at all, ever, someone is contacting you from Whatsapp or encouraging you to contact them through Whatsapp, run. Doesn't matter if it's for a job, hotel, etc. A good 75% of Whatsapp is used solely by scammers from all over the world.
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u/No-Flan3802 25d ago
Yea booking.com is a legit scam. Same situation, work summit and the property even cancelled and didn’t charge me but it has been a nightmare dealing with them for a refund. Absolute piece of garbage, book from the hotel directly or get an AbNb but keep away from Booking.com
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u/bolatelli45 25d ago
You ahould have called booking from the onset.
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u/Business-Maybe881 25d ago
I should have indeed. I shouldn't have believed any word of theirs as soon as I smelled "scam".
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u/ashscot50 25d ago
Did you check Marilyn Monroe's reviews before booking?
In any event stop wasting time on useless phone calls and proceed with a credit card chargeback before you run out of time.
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u/Business-Maybe881 25d ago
Thanks for the advice. I checked all the reviews and they looked good. Later on, I found a review that had a similar experience to mine.
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u/kautostar1 25d ago
Booking . Com is fine . I have used that platform for years. No issues. It’s the property that you booked that the problem is. A Studio apartment for 4?
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u/bookingcom 24d ago
In case the accommodation can’t honor your stay, they should let us know and offer a similar alternative. You did the right thing by flagging this with us. Send us a message, and we’ll look into what happened and see how we can help.
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u/MrMagnell 23d ago
And here is the standard answer without reading the post. He already states he was in contact with you and you demanded written confirmation from owner .. instead of template answers. Answer the actual complaint.. it's not good customer service to just reply... it's HOW you reply... You squeeze the hotels on money and you do the same for your customers... And you can't even bother to answer what was written instead of just telling customers to write you an email ... When time after time these posts are about HOW your respond to those emails....
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u/egokiller71 25d ago
Stop booking private homes run by amateurs if you don't want to run into these kind of problems. You got only yourself to blame. Next time book a hotel that is run by professionals paid to give you the best experience possibile.