Advice needed - Booking.com took over £817 from my account and gave me nothing... literally

fleeps

On 6th July I booked a flight through booking.com and got the "Your booking is pending airline confirmation" page when I completed the transaction.  The money was taken from my account but I had not received any confirmation email from them.  After a a couple of days with no change, I called the airline who told me that there was no booking under my name.  So I decided I wanted to cancel and book directly with the airline for peace of mind.  But... I soon found out that booking.com provides no way of contacting them without a confirmation number!  Great!  So I decide to contact PayPal who I used for the purchase, and they gave me the email address for booking.com.  I explained my situation to booking.com in an email dated 8th July, to which they replied on the 11th July admitting that there was a "system failure", that my ticket was not booked, and stating that they are processing my refund which will take up to 10 working days to show in my account.  It has been 13 working days and nothing.  

In the meantime, my only other option was to use paypal's dispute system (which is absolutely useless for my scenario).  

My bank says they are powerless because I used PayPal 

I have sent booking.com several emails which have been ignored.  

Any advice appreciated 

Caz3121

my understanding is that Booking.com do not sell flights directly and use GotoGate for flight bookings. Does any of your documentation / payment information mention GotoGate or another third party?

Voyager2002

What is wrong with the Paypal dispute system? This is a fairly clear case of goods payed for but not provided...

fleeps

Caz3121 said:

my understanding is that Booking.com do not sell flights directly and use GotoGate for flight bookings. Does any of your documentation / payment information mention GotoGate or another third party?

I didn't receive any kind of confirmation/documentation.   The one email reply I received from them said there was a "system failure", so I am assuming that the transaction did not fully complete despite them taking my money

Hoenir

Sometimes things take longer to rectify than expected. You won't be the only customer impacted. Be a labourious manual task to effect the refunds. 

fleeps

Voyager2002 said:

What is wrong with the Paypal dispute system? This is a fairly clear case of goods payed for but not provided...

My gripe with the dispute system is that it is so convoluted and inflexible.  It requires that I wait over a month before they "evaluate".  Considering that I have an email from booking.com confirming my position and their intention of refunding me, I find it ridiculous that I am forced to go through all the steps PayPal requires 

fleeps

I just received the following email from booking.com.  Infuriating.

Hi,

Thank you for contacting Booking.com Flights Support.

We are contacting you regarding your booking 40-xxxxxxxxx.

We attempted to refund you, however our records show that the transaction associated with this booking has been disputed with your payment provider.

This dispute period has a resolution time of 50 days and we are not able to process the refund during this period.

You can decide, to either wait for the outcome of the dispute, or request your payment provider for it to be stopped.

If you choose to stop the dispute there is still an additional mandatory waiting period of 50 days within which we are unable to process the refund.

In case your payment provider is unable to assist, kindly contact us after 100 days from raising the dispute so we can process the refund.

In case you have any additional questions, we are here for you.

Kind regards,

Claudia M.
Booking.com Flights Support

fleeps

PayPal just told me that an open dispute does not prevent them from refunding me.  

ThorOdinson

Yes, never use PayPal for anything. It's a scam, it's sole purpose is to make it impossible for you to use your legal rights with the bank.

eskbanker

ThorOdinson said:

Yes, never use PayPal for anything. It's a scam, it's sole purpose is to make it impossible for you to use your legal rights with the bank.

Ridiculous hyperbole, but it's undoubtedly true that using it does entail invoking its own disputes process rather than those offered by some other payment methods, which aren't necessarily 'legal rights' as such (except s75)....

Grumpy_chap

fleeps said:

PayPal just told me that an open dispute does not prevent them from refunding me.  

PayPal may not stop the refund, but it may well be the policy of the booking website.
There is some rationale to that from the company perspective.
If PayPal process a "chargeback" or similar, then you get your money back and the booking website have a deduction from their account.
If the booking website also refunded you, the result could be that you get the money back twice.