Booking.com Have not issued refund, giving me a run-around Internet
Used Booking.com to reserve 4 nights at a B&B in Ireland, paid in advance. I ended up having to cancel my reservation. Received prompt email from Booking.com telling me that I would be refunded what I had paid, less a 90 pound cancelation charge, within 7 to 12 days. However, the refund money never appeared on my credit card. Today, about a month after cancelling, I finally got around to calling Booking. After invistigating the problem while I sat on hold for a good 15 mins., the person I spoke with told me she could see that my refund had not been issued, but that she could not figure out why, and that the company has no direct way to be in touch with its payments department by phone (or just by walking down the hall?...). She maintained that the only way they can be in touch with Payments is to send them an email, and then Payments is "usually" back in touch with them in within 48 hours. Asked me to check back with Bookings in a couple days. I asked to speak with her supervisor, got the same answer. Bookings could not give me a confirmation number so that when I called back the person I spoke with would be able to see a record of the complaint I had just made. Nor could Bookings tell me for sure that I would be contacted by their payments department. I was supposed to just wait and hope.
Today, 48 hours later, I got an email from Bookings, essentially saying the same thing -- they're awfully sorry, have no answer yet, are looking into it. The email did not come from a Payment department, but simply from Customer Service at Booking.com. The stuff about not being able to contact the Payments Department directly is very implausible. It seems like obfuscation, which is Latin for b.s. Are they scammers? Insanely disorganized and dysfunctional? In the midst of going belly up and making nonsensical excuses to buy themselves time? Below are screen shots of my reservation information, of Booking's email acknowledging my cancellation, and of today's email giving me the runaround.