Transfers4u/Hoteltransfer/Medhotels/Thomas Cook WARNING/scam

soil_2

I booked accommodation in Tunisia with Thomas Cook (room only, they were just acting as hotel reseller), and also booked a transfer from Tunis airport with Hoteltransfer.com, which is a skin for transfers4u.com, a brand of Medhotels, a subsidiary of Thomas Cook.

When we got to the airport a man was waiting who said he was from Medhotels and he took us to the coach. When I boarded the coach, which was a rather rickety Tunisian coach but basically ok, the driver handed me his mobile phone. A Tunisian man spoke to me and said that as I had booked accommodation with Thomas Cook and also a transfer with them he was our rep and he would come to see us in the hotel at 9:30am the next day.

The next day we were woken up 9:30 by the rep, he said he would come back at 10:30am. We met him at 10:30am and asked him where we could go for lunch. He said we should go to the nearby town and there was a free Thomas Cook bus at noon. We said that was a bit early, and he said in that case we could go at 1pm as there would be a bus then also.

I asked how much the taxi would cost if we went that way and he said it would be 15 dinars each way (about £7).

So we went out at 1pm and we were slightly surprised to find not a Thomas Cook coach but an unmarked white minivan. They said 'room 255?', and we said yes. We got in and there was a driver and an English-speaking 'guide'. They took us on a tour of the seafront and then a walk through the medina pointing out the mosque before eventually going to the 'guide''s carpet showroom. Obviously by this point they had spent a fair bit of time giving us a 'free' tour.

When we were in the showroom they spent some time plying us with drinks and unrolling numerous carpets. We saw one we liked and was told it cost about £1600. I was not impressed and the salesman said he would cut 20% off, which I paid no heed to either then he suddenly said it would only be £700. I said I would leave and come back the next day but he gave some usual nonsense about special discounts being closed tomorrow, etc. He asked finally 'come on how much will you pay?'. I said £500 and they accepted.

I found out subsequently that the carpet was only worth about £200, however due to the pressure applied by the 'free' bus ride (in fact a taxi would only have cost about £3.50) and tour I was put in a position where it was difficult to simply walk away.

The rep acted unethically by sending us to the next town when we just wanted to get lunch, which was available within a few hundred metres of the hotel or in a pleasant spot along the seafront much nearer. We are experienced travellers and laughed off the various Tunisian con artists claiming to be the 'cook from the hotel', however the rep was able to exploit his position of trust and the Thomas Cook brand to con us into a trip to the carpet showroom from which he undoubtedly took a substantial commission.

I emailed transfers4u/medhotels/hoteltransfer to complain about their rep, and they were very defensive and basically told me that they couldn't care less and it's nothing to do with them, I should tell it to someone who cares.

They said:

"Medhotels.com does not employ representatives and any local agent would be employed by a separate company. "

and
"Your contract for the transfer was with Tunisian Travel Club Transfers and not Medhotels.com as advised in our terms and conditions. "


According to their website (hoteltransfer.com) however:

"Search and book your ideal transfer online with the UK's No.1 transfer operator. "

and at the bottom "Part of the Thomas Cook Group".

If you read the Booking Conditions (who does?) it says that they act only as an agent for the actual transfer operator.

The voucher they provide you looks like this:

imageshack.us/f/824/transfers4u.jpg/

and doesn't make clear that the service is provided by another company, it actually says "On arrival in Tunisia clients must look for medhotels/hotels4u.com desk or rep with a clipboard in arrivals area."

So basically on the one hand they advise you to look for their rep and on the other they claim they don't have any reps.

I pointed out that the literature (tunisiantravelclub.com/upload/pdf/ttc_english.pdf) put out by Tunisian Travel Club refers to 'Your Medhotels representative' and that this is publicly on the Tunisian Travel Club website. They referred me then to Article 19 of their t&cs, which says:

"Hotels4u.com ltd. do not sell excursions or organise activities. However, in some destinations we work closely with agencies who offer a booking service." " To assist our guests in identifying these agency representatives, we have provided them with Hotels4U.com Limited t/as Hotels4U.com, Transfers4u.com, Medhotels.com, Hoteltransfer.com and HolidayHotels.com branding I.e. T-shirts, stationery, books and boards. "

but claim that "this does not imply any endorsement or recommendation by Hotels4u.com Ltd."

So on the one hand the companies running in countries where consumer rights are much weaker than in the UK are completely outside of their control and they refuse to even contact them with complaints, but on the other they are happy to let these companies use their good name and reputation in order to sell tours and indeed con people into going to dodgy carpet shops, and further they don't properly disclose the fact that the transfer is being provided by some tinpot company with no accountability or standards.

mick_vandick

It sounds to me like he wasn't anything to do with any of the companies you used. Did he have his Thomas Cook uniform on? A rep would not speak to you on the phone.

On arrival in Tunisia clients must look for medhotels/hotels4u.com desk or rep with a clipboard in arrivals area."

So basically on the one hand they advise you to look for their rep and on the other they claim they don't have any reps.

They did that, you say the man with the board showed you to the mini-bus? That was the airport rep, they mean they don't have any resort reps.
I hate to say it but it looks like you have been conned by a chancer who called as the transfer driver knew you were independent travellers. I don't think he had anything to do with any of the companies mentioned and most likely worked for the carpet shop.
It might be worth bringing this to the attention of Thomas Cook to let them know they there are people pretending to work for them and conning people. Chances are that you are not alone in having this happen to you.

dmg24

mick_vandick wrote: »

It sounds to me like he wasn't anything to do with any of the companies you used. Did he have his Thomas Cook uniform on? A rep would not speak to you on the phone.


They did that, you say the man with the board showed you to the mini-bus? That was the airport rep, they mean they don't have any resort reps.
I hate to say it but it looks like you have been conned by a chancer calling as the transfer driver knew who you had booked with.

I agree, it is a twist on the common 'tour guide' scam. I once had someone try to sell me a tour, and when I said that I was getting the open top bus he told me it was not running so I would have to go with him. The bus pulled up shortly after ...

lfc84

so lets get this straight.

1. you spent £500 on a carpet
2. you got your airport transfer ok (which is the only thing the hoteltransfer.com are responsible for)
3. the ride in the white minivan was free
4. the ride in a white minivan took place the following day after your arrival

90% of the post is about the transfer company.

i think you need to get a grip on reality.

dont buy carpets on holiday and dont accept lifts off strangers.

did you get charged excess baggage for the rug?

soil_2

mick_vandick wrote: »

It sounds to me like he wasn't anything to do with any of the companies you used. Did he have his Thomas Cook uniform on? A rep would not speak to you on the phone.

I am pretty certain he worked for Tunisian Travel Club, whom transfers4u/medhotels contract to provide the transfer.

I'm not sure how the Thomas Cook hotel booking (which as I said was A/O, not a tour) came into it, I've checked my confirmation for the hotel booking and it says " [FONT=&quot]Rooms are provided by WWTE. [/FONT]"

A quick google search shows WWTE is Expedia's white label service, and comparing the Thomas Cook hotel site with Expedia's shows they are identical. Medhotels on the other hand has a different hotel booking system and different rates, so it's a mystery to me where he got that information about my hotel booking.

They did that, you say the man with the board showed you to the mini-bus? That was the airport rep, they mean they don't have any resort reps.

Medhotels don't have any reps at all, they are just a booking system, however they have contracts in many different countries for accommodation and for transfers. In this case the transfer contract is with Tunisian Travel Club, and they authorise Tunisian Travel Club to use their good name by claiming to be 'from Medhotels'.

I hate to say it but it looks like you have been conned by a chancer calling as the transfer driver knew who you had booked with.

This is not the most plausible explanation. I booked a transfer from medhotels/transfers4u. Medhotels/transfers4u inform me that their transfer is fulfilled by Tunisian Travel Club, and that while Tunisian Travel Club might have reps and might sell excursions, medhotels has no oversight of this, and they basically don't care what Tunisian Travel Club do as they are only acting as booking agent. You can see on Tunisian Travel Club's website that they are partnered with medhotels and that they sell excursions.

I don't have any reason to believe that the rep was not working for Tunisian Travel Club: he gave me an excursion leaflet, told me the time booked for my return coach and then contacted me again the day before leaving to tell me that the time had been changed, these are not the actions of a simple chancer who would have had no reason to contact me further after conning me into the carpet shop trip.

Clearly he works for Tunisian Travel Club, the problems for me are that Medhotels facilitates these reps to abuse their position (you have more trust for someone who is claiming to be acting on behalf of a proper company like Medhotels than 'Tunisian Travel Club') and refuses to hear any complaints about them.

I am not quite sure the precise contractual position of the rep with respect to Tunisian Travel Club, obviously he is employed by them, but how he is compensated I don't know - he was very keen to sell us 'pirate boat' tickets, for more than double the going rate, I suspect this would have been done 'off the books', and I imagine the carpet showroom scam was a personal deal he had setup too.

dmg24

soil wrote: »

I imagine the carpet showroom scam was a personal deal he had setup too.

You will find that in most scenarios like this, the 'guides' will direct you towards certain shops that just happen to be owned by their friends/ relatives.

Put it down to a bad experience, and hopefully others that are not aware of this type of scam will learn from it.

soil_2

lfc84 wrote: »

so lets get this straight.

1. you spent £500 on a carpet
2. you got your airport transfer ok (which is the only thing the hoteltransfer.com are responsible for)

The transfer was ok, however we received the unwanted attentions of a rep who was working for the Tunisian company engaged by hoteltransfer.com/Medhotels, and who claimed to be working for medhotels/Thomas Cook in order to abuse our trust.

Medhotels, who run hoteltransfer.com, refuse to hear any complaints about the antic of their service providers.

3. the ride in the white minivan was free

That's rather debatable. No doubt if we had not bought anything money would have been demanded, the 'free minibus' was all part of the scam routine to pressurise us into buying, which the rep for the company engaged by medhotels/hoteltransfer was entirely aware of.

4. the ride in a white minivan took place the following day after your arrival

90% of the post is about the transfer company.

dont buy carpets on holiday and dont accept lifts off strangers.

We were told that there was a Thomas Cook bus, the guy there greeted us with our room number and name, and while I'm fairly well travelled and have told plenty of would-be scammers where to go, I was foolishly lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that the rep was apparently working for medhotels/transfers4u, a reputable Western brand and not some local fly-by-night company.

did you get charged excess baggage for the rug?

There were 4 of us travelling, 2 pieces per passenger on BA, 32kg maximum per piece, so no.......

hcb42

I fear these scammers are everywhere where there is an opportunity.

I make it a rule on holiday, never attend a rep meeting though. I don't understand why he was knocking you up at 930!

soil_2

dmg24 wrote: »

You will find that in most scenarios like this, the 'guides' will direct you towards certain shops that just happen to be owned by their friends/ relatives.

Put it down to a bad experience, and hopefully others that are not aware of this type of scam will learn from it.

Well indeed, we had one guy say 'Don't you remember me, I am the cook from your hotel', and I just laughed at him and said 'Which hotel?' (Apparently they sometimes ask your taxi driver and the A/I wristbands are also a dead giveaway.) Then then use this as leverage to try and take you to a carpet shop to be ripped off similarly.

Anyway my intent was to contact medhotels to try and put a stop to this particular trick of their reps abusing their name to rip people off, but it seems they don't care and were very defensive and legalistic about it. So hence my warning about bookings made with them.

Actually we went to another shop and bought another carpet, however I did my research with online prices, weave types, knots per square metre, etc., and had no problems and was also much more secure about simply walking away if we weren't happy with the price/goods, whereas the first shop manipulated us with the 'free bus' and tour into a position where if we didn't buy something it would have been awkward to walk away.

soil_2

hcb42 wrote: »

I make it a rule on holiday, never attend a rep meeting though. I don't understand why he was knocking you up at 930!

I don't much like package holidays and we were pleased to be staying in a hotel with no English guests at all (all French, what few there were), this chap was that bit more persistent than the real reps, he said he would see us at 9:30am, we made no effort to get up (obviously), so he rang our room and said he would came back at 10:30am.

Normally on a package holiday if you miss the rep meeting they just put a letter under your door saying 'hello, please find this list of overpriced excursions'. But obviously the English reps are a bit more accountable than those in far off countries that the Western agents refused to take any responsibility for.

hcb42

I avoid package holidays like the plague too, although I did one last year, as was cheapest way to get to my destination.

I would find being knocked up at 0930 and him coming back at 1030 very intrusive!