This is a link to an article which is long but makes interesting and uncomfortable reading.
To attempt to summarise, an owner/manager with a number of apartments in Italy received several "bookings" made via booking.com with false credit card numbers (the numbers were available on a list of fakes for any system to check) but was forced to honour the booking for 36 hours regardless, at a peak time when he had other enquiries coming in. During that time the "booking" was amended, but still the credit card failed - and booking.com insisted that the 36 hour clock start again. He had similar experiences for several properties. The owner/manager was faced with the problem of hanging on in the hope that some of the booking(s) would ultimately be paid correctly, or accept other bookings and risk overbooking - for which booking.com, having not helped with the original problem, would fine him. This despite his ability to offer directly comparable accommodation.
According to the man's experience, booking.com are a fairly $hitty outfit to deal with when things aren't going smoothly; but as he says, their model is hotel rooms......
I hope that's a reasonably accurate précis; I have nothing to do with booking.com but this could be of use to those who do. Also bear in mind that the parent company of booking.com are strongly tipped as a contender to buy out HA/OD. Scary?
booking.com, and how they mishandle credit card fraud
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French Cricket
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EdinburghCityApartments
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This exact same thing happened to me a few weeks back. Was absolutely fuming with booking.com yet they are absolutely useless when they think there's a possibility of losing commission.
It was only one booking but clearly a fake - the guest's name was "Heavy Staines" (seriously!!), an address which didn't exist was provided as well as a phone number with a digit missing.
This booking was for a stay about 2/3 days away.
I email the "guest" in a pretty to-the-point manner saying booking not confirmed and valid details must be provided (and that I'd be asking for photo ID on arrival). Clicked on the "credit card details not valid" button. Get an automatic message saying "We find that guests may be travelling at this time therefore have asked the guest to pay by 6pm on the arrival date."
Phoned customer services and spoke with a non-English native who gave the usual spiel so demanded to speak to an English native speaker in the hope they would understand the fake name etc - no luck. "Sometimes people have unusual names, new houses are built so the address might be new and he may have mistyped his number".
I really wish I didn't rely so much on Booking.com bookings!
It was only one booking but clearly a fake - the guest's name was "Heavy Staines" (seriously!!), an address which didn't exist was provided as well as a phone number with a digit missing.
This booking was for a stay about 2/3 days away.
I email the "guest" in a pretty to-the-point manner saying booking not confirmed and valid details must be provided (and that I'd be asking for photo ID on arrival). Clicked on the "credit card details not valid" button. Get an automatic message saying "We find that guests may be travelling at this time therefore have asked the guest to pay by 6pm on the arrival date."
Phoned customer services and spoke with a non-English native who gave the usual spiel so demanded to speak to an English native speaker in the hope they would understand the fake name etc - no luck. "Sometimes people have unusual names, new houses are built so the address might be new and he may have mistyped his number".
I really wish I didn't rely so much on Booking.com bookings!
Yes, that is a possibility I would think. BC's model is for hotel rooms, not IMO for individual holiday lettings, such as cottages, apartments, villas, etc. BC's rules appear to be unreasonably harsh on owners, but favourable to guests, even when guests try tricks like putting up a false credit card (as happened in GB's link and also to Edinburgh on this thread).FelicityA wrote:Is this the way a competitor can bring down another's business without any trace, blocking the calendar so you can't take other bookings?
Booking.com have a sister site called "Villas.com"; their t's and c's are the same as BC's. I can see that instant booking and no owner-guest contact could appeal to many holidaymakers, but IMO a risky way to go for owners of individual rental properties, particular if they also have listings on other sites as well.
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Ecosse
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That is horrendous, Edinburgh - you have my sympathy.
I just don't get this 'instant booking' thing - the only site we're on that does anything remotely similar is our local tourist office site which sends us a 'pré-réservation form' which we can either accept or reject without penalty. How come they 'get' that someone could have walked through the door asking for the same room (or heaven forbid, you dare to list on other sites?!) the moment the other request comes, and someone as large as BC doesn't?
I just don't get this 'instant booking' thing - the only site we're on that does anything remotely similar is our local tourist office site which sends us a 'pré-réservation form' which we can either accept or reject without penalty. How come they 'get' that someone could have walked through the door asking for the same room (or heaven forbid, you dare to list on other sites?!) the moment the other request comes, and someone as large as BC doesn't?
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tinylandlord
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Horrible and unbearable risks for landlords from 1 july on
Hi all,
I actually ended up .... hold on to your chairs...
making 40.000 euro in as little as 1 month (through "direct booking" sites like Airbnb)
and after hosting all those youngsters, who might I add ALL showed up with sometimes twice the number of head count initially booked
well, thereafter the same "Airbnb like" websites, then refused to pay me out, and left me "holding the bag" (as they call it in Credit Card fraud language terms), I was down 30.000 euro
It gets worse:
all those "direct booking websites" however did decide to keep (!!!) their commissions (even on those which i never got a cent paid for), which they essentially asked me to pay over to them from my next upcoming booking.
It's a fantastic way for them to make money. They don;t own a property, they dont work for it, they only get you a guest (including a fake one with the plan to do a chargeback on you- no matter how well you serve them) and then they hold on to the funds and refuse paying them out under the pretence that YOU defaulted in something (like
the guest says the house was small for 12p...and you go..well, they only booked for 6p!...and theyll go...yea, thats a shame but is STILL should have fit 12p)
On top of that, the Paypal company changed the rules to seriously hurt us only since july. I posted a thread on it. It comes down to having to hold 6mths worth of sales, because also Paypal can come after you asking for up to 6mths sales to be refunded. So now we face 2 risks: 1) the dishonest non payouts and 2) the potential dishonest forceful refund requests coming through paypal from Airbnb like websites covered under the latest 1july paypal terms (buyer protection which from now on will allow a refund even for 'services' and not just 'goods')
Okay, it s late. im tired, but felt you should know about this. Its bad. Very bad.
Gd nite!
I actually ended up .... hold on to your chairs...
making 40.000 euro in as little as 1 month (through "direct booking" sites like Airbnb)
and after hosting all those youngsters, who might I add ALL showed up with sometimes twice the number of head count initially booked
well, thereafter the same "Airbnb like" websites, then refused to pay me out, and left me "holding the bag" (as they call it in Credit Card fraud language terms), I was down 30.000 euro
It gets worse:
all those "direct booking websites" however did decide to keep (!!!) their commissions (even on those which i never got a cent paid for), which they essentially asked me to pay over to them from my next upcoming booking.
It's a fantastic way for them to make money. They don;t own a property, they dont work for it, they only get you a guest (including a fake one with the plan to do a chargeback on you- no matter how well you serve them) and then they hold on to the funds and refuse paying them out under the pretence that YOU defaulted in something (like
the guest says the house was small for 12p...and you go..well, they only booked for 6p!...and theyll go...yea, thats a shame but is STILL should have fit 12p)
On top of that, the Paypal company changed the rules to seriously hurt us only since july. I posted a thread on it. It comes down to having to hold 6mths worth of sales, because also Paypal can come after you asking for up to 6mths sales to be refunded. So now we face 2 risks: 1) the dishonest non payouts and 2) the potential dishonest forceful refund requests coming through paypal from Airbnb like websites covered under the latest 1july paypal terms (buyer protection which from now on will allow a refund even for 'services' and not just 'goods')
Okay, it s late. im tired, but felt you should know about this. Its bad. Very bad.
Gd nite!
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EdinburghCityApartments
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tinylandlord,
I've no doubt there will be a lot more to it than Airbnb and Paypal just trying to make your life difficult by imposing new rules and more "protection" for buyers.
I get the impression your properties target a particular audience - an audience that may not be the type of clientele most of us here would even dream of entertaining. It sounds like despite guests turning up with double the number of people who booked, you still allow them access which, to me, would be you accepting that the property would be accommodating that number of people. I can't imagine any "sleeps 6" property having 12 people turn up to it expecting to stay there unless in some way it appears 12 will be able to fit.
I also don't imagine Airbnb will be keeping your money - they will either feel obliged to return it to the guest (after using their resolution process) or holding it until the matter is resolved. They're probably well within their rights to maintain charging you commission as they would have earned that if the guest had booked a property that matched their requirements/was advertised well etc.
Maybe you should enlist the help of the large number of LMH members by posting links to these properties and maybe you'll get an idea of why you seem to run into so many problems as it appears you do at the moment...
I've no doubt there will be a lot more to it than Airbnb and Paypal just trying to make your life difficult by imposing new rules and more "protection" for buyers.
I get the impression your properties target a particular audience - an audience that may not be the type of clientele most of us here would even dream of entertaining. It sounds like despite guests turning up with double the number of people who booked, you still allow them access which, to me, would be you accepting that the property would be accommodating that number of people. I can't imagine any "sleeps 6" property having 12 people turn up to it expecting to stay there unless in some way it appears 12 will be able to fit.
I also don't imagine Airbnb will be keeping your money - they will either feel obliged to return it to the guest (after using their resolution process) or holding it until the matter is resolved. They're probably well within their rights to maintain charging you commission as they would have earned that if the guest had booked a property that matched their requirements/was advertised well etc.
Maybe you should enlist the help of the large number of LMH members by posting links to these properties and maybe you'll get an idea of why you seem to run into so many problems as it appears you do at the moment...