Anyone know about or used wimdu.co.uk?

bluesmama

Ripped me off two months before I even got to San Francisco. I had (stupidly) entered my credit card number to (I thought) hold a vacation rental. They charged my card RIGHT AWAY, so, alarmed, I cancelled the reservation somewhere around 24 hours after making it. Now Wimdu claims they are keeping 12% of the total as a fee.
They claimed it was in the "terms and conditions", which is about 12 pages long. NO where on the "complete booking" page does it say, if it turns out you don't like the host, even if you cancel we're keeping 12%. Now I'm out $134. I've begged and begged via email and they continously politely tell me they're keeping my money.

Here in the US hotels do indeed take your credit card number but don't charge you until you actually show up.

tallgarth

Doozergirl wrote: »

As title really.

I can't remember who sent me the link for it - it might have been travelzoo or something else legit, but I got a £65 voucher for 'liking' them on facebook and booking through them.

You can register your own room or property with them for people to come and stay with you, the idea being you get better value for money in someone's home. Obviously you can also book to stay in someone's home and they act like a broker. I've found a B&B that has good reviews on tripadvisor that I'd be happy staying in using the voucher but whilst googling this company I can see that they are marketing pretty aggressively via facebook, I can't find anyone with any experience of using them!

I'm kind of not expecting any replies to this!

I used this site for a Budapest apartment and was satisfied. However I then booked for Porto and it is clear that Wimdu does not check their hosts out and leave them on the site despite what amounts to dishonesty. I booked the apartment because the reviews were OK but then found that the host Joana had severel other Porto apartments listed. Looking at all her reviews it was clear that frequently people had serious problems, the main one being that the apartment was shocking and not the one described. I therefore cancelled but had to forfeit my booking fee to WIMDU. I subsequently booked through a very similar site and was very happy.

tallgarth

I have just been back on the Wimdu site and it seems the negative comments for that host have disappeared! I don't know but I suspect she has re-registered as a new host to wipe the slate clean. If I am right it is a further indication that Wimdu do not exercise proper control. My advice is check out the hosts very carefully, particularly if they list several properties.

Gracey123

I would avoid using Wimdu if I were you...they tried to scam me twice with bogus guests. I've had guests through them twice now and on both occasions the guests have suddenly upped and left without explanation. The first time it happened, the guest said they had to suddenly return to their country as their trip to UK had been cut short. I still got paid in full so I thought nothing of it. The second time, the guests said "someone" had tried to enter their room "while" they were still in it. Questions to the guests asking a description of who entered the room proved to no avail (I was the only other person in the flat at the time). The strange thing is that I should have been paid by Sunday automatically, the guests didn't complain till Monday but Wimdu still withheld payment. I only got paid after I kicked up hell with Wimdu and demanded explanation from the guests/Wimdu. Wimdu tried to fob me off by saying they refused to pay me because I did not do a key-handover with the guests. I didn't hand over the keys because my suspicions were already raised after the first "guests" I had through Wimdu. But that was not what the guests complained about though so why did Wimdu withhold the payment? Something is going on.....and I would avoid this scammy company at all costs. In case anyone is interested in seeing/reading the email trail between myself and windu, I will be happy to forward it to you or post on here.

miltos696

From many complaints I have seen so far, this is a usual bad experience with Wimdu.
Booked a place in Paris, my money was withdrawn IMMEDIATELY from the credit card although it took 24 hours to confirm the booking. The host advertised as a nice French lady, turned out to be a company that sent me a long rental agreement with extra costs and 500 Euros deposit. I found all of these unacceptable.
I contacted Wimdu within 24 hrs and they said that the conditions of the rental were advertised and I have to pay 50% cancellation fee plus their fee of course. I contacted the host and was informed that Wimdu DOES NOT allow companies to identify themselves as companies on the Wimdu site, they instead provide names of non-existing individual landlords.
Now, It's unlikely but possible that I missed the strict conditions attached to the advertisement and wimdu staff were not impolite BUT the end effect is the same: a purposeful misrepresentation of reality by the company and a loss of 240 euros for me. I would have forgotten the unfortunate episode but meanwhile I read so many bad reviews of wimdu (wish I had read them before I booked) that I should really caution everyone to BE CAREFUL when you book with them and to DOUBLE and TRIPLE CHECK everything before you press that button!!! because, after you do, you're on your own!
Miltos

PS If you think that you’re having any kind of insurance protection (credit card or otherwise) in case of loss, forget it. I’ve tried it and the credit card informed me that Wimdu is just an online “booking service” and has no legal obligation to its customers.