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No-Show Guests Not Approved & Debt Collector Requests Commission

Hi Everyone,

I desperately need your help and experience. Last year I setup my account to host at my villa. There was no way for me to accept payment online (not available in Greece then). I never got a single guest, despite countless fake reservations. After numerous cancellations and no shows some slipped through the cracks (I cancelled the bookings but maybe the “guest” did not approve it or maybe they booked again) and I had to go through with disputing four reservations. All was well until after the 3rd disputed reservation which Booking.com declined my disputes.

At that point I messaged them explaining the situation and they completely ignored me. I called support many times which assured me I would get a call-back and all will be fine (which never happened). I sent a lot of other messages via Extranet which I received no reply to and eventually I started receiving emails from a Russian debt collection company. The debt collection company never responds to any of my emails and their phone number is just an answering machine that places you on hold indefinitely. Also, anyone I ask on Booking.com to help resolve the situation just points me to the debt collection agency.

I wish I had a single booking and I would be ecstatic to pay a commission but paying 1500 Euro for phantom guests is way too much. Has anyone faced a similar situation? What should I do? Is there some sort of evidence I could gather to prove these stays were fictional? Is there a reason Booking.com prefers settling these things in court (apart from profiting)?

Any comments on the matter would be greatly appreciated.


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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

Hey there,

You have a few options here:

1. You can ignore the whole thing and let it go to court, it will be on their expense if they sue you and you can then prove the case easily.

2. You can hire a lawyer but it will cost you.

3. Try to reach upper management from BDC via the phone, especially if you have a local office, they have an office manager or your area manager.

For point 1. you can prove it by collecting all the data on the messages you've sent, the calls you made, etc. and that they haven't replied to any of them, therefore it's going to fall under deliberate action by BDC to force you into payment for something that you haven't benefited from.

They can counter argue that you were notified how the system works and you haven't marked the reservations as a no-show in their system, therefore you can lose the lawsuit on this point (depending on the lawyer and judge).

For point 2. same story as above.

For point 3. you will have to get through the clutter, the call center representatives in order to talk to someone about this. Now remember, the Credit Control team only communicates via BDC inbox messages, not calls, so this might make things difficult.

Hope that clarifies things a bit.

Best regards,

Zsolt - www.thuild.com

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Anukap 23 5 years ago

I missed disputing one invoice in 48 hrs due to No internet Signal for more then 30 days as i stay in Hills, i never received any reminder after 48 hrs from BDC and after 30 days i got the reminder to pay the invoice, immediately i disputed the invoice but BDC rejected my request, I requested so many times thru emails to kindly remove the rejection and give me the wavier but no action so far from BDCand they blocked my account.

As a BDC Partner i accept some flexibility in genuine cases, also one System Generated REMINDER after 40+ Hrs to the partner is accepted from such a professional company so one should not miss the set deadline.

In past I cooperated so many times adjusting the guests booking errors and during thr stay to keep BDC brand high, but this kind of rigidness to ward its Partner is not healthy.

Can any one help and guide me.

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Selamile Dlamini 4 years ago

Hello,

What did you end up doing here? I'm in the same situation, where booking.com is asking for ~$500 for guests that haven't shown up, and they've rejected all our disputes thusfar and threatened to send a debt collector. I've canceled all bookings, blocked our calendar, and been asking for them to take us off the platform but no luck.

Would appreciate hearing your perspective and what happened in your case.

Thanks!

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Elsie Nwanza 2 years ago

Please how did you get past this. I’m in the same situation where Booking.com is asking for a huge amount of money and threatening to take legal measures. Please I need some advice 

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Heyomoh 1 year ago
Hello, please I’m in the same situation. No successful booking and I’m charge to pay commission. Please how did you get through this