Complaint Review: LivingSocial

I subscribe to Living Social deals. I received an e-mail promotion for a Cyber Monday 25% discount. The e-mail also had some fine print stating the maximum discount amount was $25. Unfortunately I clicked on link without seeing this. 

I went to the escapes section to see what room deals were available in New York City.  I found a deal at the Hilton Garden Inn which looked promising entered my dates and got an available room price which did not yet include the promotional discount.  There was a place to enter the promo code above the buy now button.  At this point I did not have the final transaction amount. Their website has the following statement right under where you enter the promo code "Your promo code will be applied to your transaction when you click 'buy now' if there is a problem, if there is a problem we will let you fix it before charging your card.".   Any other internet site I have used applies the promo amount and lets you see the final transaction amount before you finalize the transaction and especially because of the above statement on their website I expected that when I clicked the buy now that I would see the final amount with the discount  and then would have to take action to finalize the transaction.  Instead the room was booked and my card was charged immediately without me knowing what the final amount with discount  and allowing me to decide if I wanted to proceed.

Needless to say the price adjustment was $25 dollars not the 25% I was expecting which would have been a discount between $95 and $110 depending on how the 25% was calculated. I would not have chosen to prroceed with the tranaction had I been shown that the discount was only going to be $25.

The transaction is a non-refundable booking which I knew that it would be if I decided to proceed with it once I got the final price. Living Social's wording concerning it being non-refndable is not as straight forward as it should be.either    What they say on the site is "Bookings cancelled on or after (date) will be non-refndable. All modificatons to bookings must be requested from Living Social Customer Service Representatives.   They display the current date in the statement.  Their policy is that it is non-refundable and can't be modified no way no how..  Why word it in such as to make it sound like there might be an opportunity to change something or to catch some poor soul who may not realize that it is todays date they are showing and that means there is no changing anything once you hit click on that button. The should just say NON REFUNDABLE NON CHANGEABLE and leave it at that.

 I contacted them immediately via e-mail since there customer service was not open when this happened.  I followed up via phone the next day. Living Social's customer service response boils down to Tough Luck, your stuck with it we gotcha and we ain't  gonna do nothin. My position is that they should unbooik the room and uncharge my card since they proceeded with the transaction prematurely without showing me the final cost.  They take the position is that they are following their policies as stated.  My position is that statement that if there is a problem I will get to fix it before my card is charged is also a policy. 

After their refusal to do anything I contacted my credit card company and they called them and once again I was in conversation with them.  While they made a better pretense of trying to be helpful and pretending to check to see what they could do the end result was the same we are just following their policies and there is nothing they can do. When I pointed out that they were picking and choosing what policies they follow, reminding them that the statement on their website regarding my getting an opportunity to fix a problem before my card is also a policy they finally came back and said they would credit me an additional $25.  AT THIS TIME THAT HAS NOT BEEN DONE.

CAVEAT EMPTOR .... BUYER BEWARE