Error on lastminute.com gave us the wrong property

ScribblyGum

Hi, I've read the posting guidelines and structured the info below based on that...

What did you buy?
An apartment in Paris, for 4 nights.

When did you buy it?
Two weeks ago.

Where from? (internet or in store - it DOES make a difference)
Lastminute.com

How did you pay? (cash/cheque/debit card/credit card etc)
Debit card.

What went wrong?
When we arrived it was a different apartment to the one we'd booked. We raised this immediately with the owner, who raised it with booking.com (who were the actual website who took the booking via lastminute.com). Both said we had been given the property we'd booked and we must have made the mistake. After much confusion and investigations we determined the problem was that lastminute were listing the property with the wrong photos/details. We sent this info to the owner for them to confirm if this was correct and they raised the issue with lastminute.com on the last day of our holiday (when we were busy travelling).

What are the vendors telling you?
We raised the complaint with lastminute on returning home, initially they said it was booking.com's fault, we pushed them to check their website, when they did they admitted their website had a fault and offered us a £30 voucher. They said they can't offer more because we didn't contact them when we first arrived, but we did contact the owner on the first day and had many emails back and forth with them and booking.com before we realised it was lastminute who were at fault.

What solution or remedy are you looking for? (Companies may Repair / Refund / Replace)
Ultimately, we bought one thing and were given another.
We went to great lengths to determine were it had gone wrong.
So we'd like a refund, or part thereof... at least more than a £30 voucher to use on a faulty website!

Lastminute are refusing to reconsider and it seems we may not be covered by "ABTA" because it wasn't a package, and may not be covered by Section 75 because we paid with a debit card.

Any advice on options for pursing this would be really appreciated.

lincroft1710

In what way(s) did the apartment you stayed at not match up to the one you thought you booked? What was the price difference?

ScribblyGum

The apartment we received was less attractive than the one we booked, it had fewer windows and was cramped. Most apartments in Paris are small so we'd taken a long time to pick a good one with two large windows in the living area, the one we received had only one right in the corner.

Based on the apartment listings elsewhere it seems the one we thought we were booking is slightly more expensive than the one we received. I assume we paid the price of the one we received. So we were seeing the details of a better apartment while being shown the price of another cheaper apartment - which sounds like "mis-selling" or false advertising to me?

ScribblyGum

Sorry, forgot to say how much the price difference was. It's hard to say but at the moment, the one we thought we were booking is listed as £90 more expensive over a 4 night stay.
Thanks for the quick reply too!

LilElvis

How much did you pay for the accommodation?

lincroft1710

As you stayed in the apartment you have no right to a full refund. You believe you paid the price for the apartment you stayed in, rather than the more spacious one, so you weren't overcharged.

You don't say how much the apartment cost, so difficult to work out what percentage is £30. Has the website corrected the error?

ScribblyGum

It cost 358 euros, so around £313.
It looks like they have fixed it now.

lincroft1710

It does seem to be a genuine mistake rather than an attempt to mislead. I don't know if their offer is reasonable or not.

If you want to pursue this, you have to decide what you have actually lost in monetary terms, which I suspect is minimal, you cannot claim a full refund. Therefore you would have to look at what you have lost in enjoyment which is very difficult to quantify.

It depends how far you want to go to pursue this. MoneyClaimOnLine (Google it) is the only way you may get more, but it will cost you if you lose your case. It may be just worth accepting the £30 voucher (if they definitely won't increase their offer) and putting this down to experience

unholyangel

ScribblyGum wrote: »

It cost 358 euros, so around £313.
It looks like they have fixed it now.

So how much would you be happy with for them to refund?

This isnt straight forward, because typically when damages are awarded, its awarded on the basis of what position you would have been in had the contract been performed correctly. Had that contract been performed correctly, you'd have paid £90/30% more and gotten the more expensive accommodation (providing it was actually available, if not then you would have had to look for somewhere else). I'd maybe push for £50-60 but unless you incurred actual losses - such as the location being vastly different so having to pay for transport you wouldnt have otherwise needed - I think you may well be limited to a token gesture.

ScribblyGum

Thanks for your thoughts, the impact on the enjoyment of the holiday was a big part of it to be honest, because we'd picked an apartment we would have enjoyed spending time in for my GF's birthday, whereas we had to treat it as just a place where we slept in the end. Not to mention the time wasted fault-finding and initial tensions with the owner. But the "resolver" site gives the impression that effects upon the enjoyment of a holiday are not grounds for complaint, we'll look into that further if that can be a consideration.

Also, I agree that it was a mistake rather than an attempt to mislead, but it was a fault that was difficult to diagnose and recreate so it would still be on their site today if I had not taken the time to pin-point it. So we've suffered the consequences of their mistake, then spent time identifying it and getting them to fix it and a 10% voucher in return (to use on a website I've lost confidence in) seems like a "token gesture" as @unholyangel says, rather than an acknowledgement of fault or appreciation of us as customers. I suppose I'm just surprised and disappointed, I have used them for years and thought they were better than this.

@unholyangel, I genuinely expected a refund or a large percentage of it, purely out of professional embarrassment if nothing else. I work in website development and to have a customer point out a fault like this would be really helpful and embarrassing, so my response would be apologetic and generous to win their confidence back :-)

We'd seen the MCOL and had initially thought we'd have to pay their costs if we lost, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The fees for under £300 seem reasonable so that's becoming an attractive option...

Thanks again.

unholyangel

ScribblyGum wrote: »

Thanks for your thoughts, the impact on the enjoyment of the holiday was a big part of it to be honest, because we'd picked an apartment we would have enjoyed spending time in for my GF's birthday, whereas we had to treat it as just a place where we slept in the end. Not to mention the time wasted fault-finding and initial tensions with the owner. But the "resolver" site gives the impression that effects upon the enjoyment of a holiday are not grounds for complaint, we'll look into that further if that can be a consideration.

Also, I agree that it was a mistake rather than an attempt to mislead, but it was a fault that was difficult to diagnose and recreate so it would still be on their site today if I had not taken the time to pin-point it. So we've suffered the consequences of their mistake, then spent time identifying it and getting them to fix it and a 10% voucher in return (to use on a website I've lost confidence in) seems like a "token gesture" as @unholyangel says, rather than an acknowledgement of fault or appreciation of us as customers. I suppose I'm just surprised and disappointed, I have used them for years and thought they were better than this.

@unholyangel, I genuinely expected a refund or a large percentage of it, purely out of professional embarrassment if nothing else. I work in website development and to have a customer point out a fault like this would be really helpful and embarrassing, so my response would be apologetic and generous to win their confidence back :-)

We'd seen the MCOL and had initially thought we'd have to pay their costs if we lost, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The fees for under £300 seem reasonable so that's becoming an attractive option...

Thanks again.

I appreciate I'm going off the mental imagery you're painting but from the little you've mentioned (being smaller, less windows), you'd be extremely lucky to get any sort of significant refund. Different if they had perhaps charged you the price of the more expensive accommodation but from what you said, the better accommodation was never available at the price you paid.

As for MCOL, generally legal costs aren't recoverable but other costs are. Such as £90 per day lost earnings and travelling expenses. So you're potentially looking at risking £200+ just for the chance to potentially get a partial refund (which may be as little as £30 anyway).

Just something to consider perhaps.