Booking.com Charged 2x on non-refundable hotel room and refused to reimburse for mistake Amsterdam Amsterdam
Where do I begin--I am traveling Europe and need to book a hotel room, so I use the phone app Booking.com provides to book a room. During the payment processing, the app hung for 10 minutes and never gave any finalization. I went ahead and pressed the back button on my android phone and tried to rebook the room, the second time it went through.
When I went to check my reservation the following day, I had two identical reservations -- and sure enough, 300 EUR charged twice on my credit card.
So here's how you know a company is bad--
1. When I went to try and find any sort of contact information for Booking.com on their website or app, there is none. No email addresses or phone numbers provided. The only way you can 'get help' is by choosing the reservation you made. In this case, I made a 'non refundable reservation', which apparently went through a 'third party' and when I sought help for it--the app gave me nothing. No contact details, no ability to get in touch with them except through a short message prompt they provide.
2. In total over 3-4 days I have about 10-12 different replies from choosing this method of contact. Each and every one of them is cut and pasted, exactly the same, with a different first name and last initial, like Dan O., or Judy P. at the bottom. I suspect, this is all AI driven or botted and there is no human behind the customer support.
In any case, I was told repeatedly through these canned emails and a phone call (they finally sent me a number after I sent several messages) that they can not do anything about it, because it's a non refundable reservation. So in other words, if Booking.com makes any mistake, or their app crashes (in this case) or their website has a fault, and it results in you incurring a double fee or worse, say they mistakenly charged your card for $50,000 USD--too bad. It's non-refundable, and as the emails state, it says so when you book the reservation.
I work in customer service, and have my entire life. The pain I went through trying to get my refund, and the way I was treated by this organization is a crime. I never have treated any customer like this in my life, nor would I expect any other decent company to. I suspect, although based in Amsterdam, Booking.com is a Chinese venture. Caveat emptor.
In case you were wondering, the staff at the hotel were able to find the Chinese company that Booking.com used to make the booking and cancel the reservation for me. They got me out of the mess, Booking.com hung me out to dry completely, and more importantly failed to own their mistakes.
In no way did I ever intentionally book a room twice--their app failed, it resulted in this mess, and along with the hotel had to suck up the damage and fix the situation. Shame on you Booking.com. I will never use your services again, and I highly recommend that nobody reading this does either. Book directly with a hotel and save yourself pain--or at least a more reputable online booking company that posts numbers and emails on their website to contact them.