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| Bed & Breakfast News | Sept-Oct 2016
Shocked by the spurious websites:
I’ ve just done a random check of my B & B name via Google and I’ m shocked at the number of sites which are using my details without my knowing anything about them.
Most spurious of all is lodging-world. com which purports to have a review from someone called‘ Whistlestop’ who says he had a‘ freshly cooked breakfast’. As I don’ t DO cooked breakfast, I know this is completely made up.
A lot of them appear to be from the Booking. com stable, trying to flood my own( as yet unfinished) website out of the market. It is a curious anomaly that although Booking. com offered me a website with a 10 % commission rate, not one guest has ever come via that site. Funny that!
I think it would be worthwhile finding out if this is widespread practice and alerting the public to it.
AH
Going off Booking. com
We are rapidly losing our will to work with Booking. com:
1. We get no feedback from their review system. It is impossible to work out how guests have derived their score and therefore it is impossible to determine whether any improvement or change would make things better.
2. Booking. com no longer keep credit card details beyond 10 days from booking. So if a cancellation occurs within 2 days of due arrival, there are no credit card details with which to charge the cancellation amount. Booking. com have, without notice, transferred the risk of handling customer credit card details to the accommodation provider. We have only discovered this within the last two days and have lost two cancellation costs as a result.
3. Booking. com customer service is abysmal. They never reply to“ inbox” messages until a minimum of 48 hours has elapsed. Phone calls are evasive and diversive – they would rather talk about something they know about rather than the issue you called them, or they called you about!
AW