Woes of Using an Online Hotel Booking App

A member of our Complaint Singapore Facebook group had shared her bad experience with an online hotel booking app in Singapore.

In the complaint post, she wrote that she had made an error on the booking information, and contacted the call center to correct the mistake. She also indicated that she would like to pay the hotel charges at the said property.

However, the app went ahead and deducted the hotel charges without prior notification or her permission!

Read more of her woes below…

The original Facebook post is truncated as it’s a bit lengthy, you may view the full complaint below..

The full text extract of the original post is here:

Help me share friends help help..

I really feel so helpless I don’t know what to do… I need agoda to do something… Checked through online Facebook on their review and realise its not only me who encounter this problem…

First time use agoda. The experience with you is horrible and terrible. This is how it happen.

First time it was my mistake for putting the guest name as my name and used my husband credit card to pay(well I didn’t know that I cant use my husband credit card because it was not same as the guest name). So first called to agoda to change the name and clarify with the customer officer that I choose the pay at property so they should not deduct any money thru my credit card until I arrive.

Second call was made to agoda because there is a deduction thru hotel in my bank statement. The customer officer clarify with hotel and told me I paid yet they will send an prove to me. After one week they did not send any proof at all.

So third call I called and ask where is the reciept that your say your will send? I repeated the story and the customer officer say I didn’t pay for it and I say I want to speak to the manager about this incident because I felt so helpless but the officer HANGED MY CALL.

So fourth I called again. The officer was a manager. I explain again and answer was they will check again and won’t disappoint me with the answer. So I waited for the email.

Today I called again. I repeated again cause I recieved an email saying that the hotel didnt deduct the money but my bank statement say they did and transaction has been made. AGODA IS THE AGENT AND IN THE EMAIL THEY TOLD ME TO CONTACT THE HOTEL MYSELF. yes I contacted myself with hotel because I have no idea who to look for but in between our conversation with the hotel our line keep cut off a few times.. So I contacted agoda again and repeat again Yet they say they will verify with the hotel again with my screen shot of bank statement. Till now I have not recieve any news yet.

Moral of the story is
The property deducted the money thru my credit card and agoda investigated yet tell me that I didn’t pay for it.

WHAT IS GOING ON? I M GOING FOR AN HOLIDAY, I AM SUPPOSE TO BE VERY HAPPY AND EXCITED BUT I M FREAKING NOT ALL THANKS TO AGODA!

Through this experience, I felt so helpless and problem did not solve at ALL TILL NOW. I paid SGD 416 DOLLAR FOR NOTHING, Its my husband hard earn money.. ALL I GOT WAS BLAME PUSHED AROUND! WELL DONE AGODA.

People please be aware! I hope that the shares can make them see this so they can solve my problems immediately.

The confirmation email from Agoda for the said booking: