Booking.com complaint help

Billyballs

Wondering if anyone can help? I have recently used booking.com for a trip away with friends. The value was only about £150 for the booking, but in the week building up to travelling, I tried to contact the property using the contact details provided by booking.com and it was a dead line. Smelling a bit of a rat, I then contacted the caravan site that the property was listed as being on and the Haven site told me that the site is closed throughout all of Jan and Feb, so the booking I made is a scam. I reported this to booking.com but their advice was to go to check in anyway and if as we suspected, the property was unavailable, to then call them and they would attempt to relocate us. As there were 9 of us travelling from all corners of the UK, I explained that I was unwilling to do that so booked a different property for our stay through a hotel directly.

On the day of our stay, I did go to the caravan site in question to get pictures and proof that I had tried to check in and when speaking with the security man there, he said that they have had 3 or 4 people every week falling for this scam. I tried to call booking.com to explain but the wait time for customer services was over an hour, so I put the phone down and messaged online as well as commented on their twitter page.

I have had responses from booking.com to say that they are unwilling to give a refund and cannot help. They say that there is no proof that it's a scam and they cannot find any evidence of it. They could quite easily contact the caravan site, but clearly have not. Furthermore, the property is still listed on the booking.com website despite there being several revies from people who have fallen for the same scam.

My complaint has fallen on deaf ears and I've hit a dead end with trying to get a refund but surely there is something more I can do as I have been sold a property that doesn't even exist. They have told me that it is non refundable but doesn't that go out of the window when the property isn't real?

If anyone can give any info on where I can complain to next, that would be a great help as I do not want to accept what they have said.

Thanks

marlot

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/feb/01/bookingcoms-measly-customer-service-left-us-out-in-the-cold

daveyjp

If you paid by credit or debit card a claim through the card provider is probably the only way to get any result.

At least you know why sites such as booking.com are best used for research, but booking should be direct with the property owner.

Billyballs

daveyjp said:

If you paid by credit or debit card a claim through the card provider is probably the only way to get any result.

At least you know why sites such as booking.com are best used for research, but booking should be direct with the property owner.

Thanks, I'll get in touch with my debit card provider. Not sure I'm likely to get anywhere with them but I'll try.

Booking.com won't be able to get in touch with the property owner because all of their contact details are fake. Booking.com have told me that if they can't get hold of the property owner (which they cant) they have no other way of determining that a property is fake. In other words, they don't give a toss and can't be bothered contacting the caravan site to check if it's open or not. Seems a disgustingly easy scam to pull