| Each month this page will feature a complaint we have received that we feel deserves a special mention, either for the circumstances giving rise to the complaint, the questions it raises, or for the manner, good or bad, in which it was handled. |
To book this page for your company - Just treat your customers badly!
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Havana Travel Ltd - London N13 |
| Marion Wright contacted us with the following: "Our daughters booked a lovely huge villa in Cyprus called Villa Havana, via Havana Travel Ltd of 261 Green Lanes, London N13 4XE, tel: 020 8447 9833. They paid £3,000 for a 10 day break and it was for our 25th wedding anniversary, and they saved all year. It looked fantastic on the website: www.villahavana.co.uk, and it appears on several other websites also. We arrived to find the first four days were to be awful. The pool was green and not usable. The electric was on /off and the electrician was called out 4 times. There were no Tvs or access to UK programs, the fires were not usable. There were broken garden steps and statues, and it was very unclean. We reported this to their man in Cyprus, and some things were dealt with by day 5. Some were not. Bathrooms which should have been available were not working and hot water was almost non existent. We continued to complain with little corrective action. We own and run a holiday home and a residential training centre and know what is reasonable and what is not. We reported this all to the owner and the company through whom we booked. We asked for a 50% refund as half our holiday was cleaning and spoiled by not being able to use the pool and lack of facilities, etc. The initial response was a telephone call from a man we had not dealt with telling us that our contact Jay Cemal had left the company and he would take care of it and speak to the owner of the property. The next was a call telling us the company was no longer at the London address, and now nothing. We wrote to advise we would take action, using photos we took of the items which were wrong and we had 14 people there who can also verify the situation. The letter came back with a hand written note "Havana Travel Ltd No Longer trading at this address". I checked on companies house and it shows it is but accounts are overdue. Can I take action via the small claims court and how can we alert people not to book with this company as they still have their website and offerings operational including this villa? Please advise if I can alert the general public in the UK and Cyrpus tourist board? |
Terra Nova Holiday Promotions International - Tenerife |
Mr Dennis P of Torquay has just contacted us with the following:
Complaint: Sold membership in to a holiday club last October,by a company called Terra Nova Holiday Promotions International who are based in Tenerife.They promised us cheap holidays & promised our money back after 4 years? We would receive a bankers cheque to hold & then decide if we wanted to cash it in.Also we were told that we could get holidays at £76 a week cheap flights, This has cost us £9,500 and I have tried to cancell the contract but this company will not reply to any of my e-mails or make contact.
Establishment - Individual Concerned: Terranova,Locales 312/313,Playa de las Americas, Torviscas, Adeje 38660 Tenerife spain.E-mail terranovaholiday@yahoo.es/terranovacompletions@yahoo.com the person we dealt with is named Ros Davies
Help Required: Well I would like to get our money back if possible? or if anyone else has had dealings with this company and if how they got their money back also to warn others of this company
We Say: We have not heard of these people before but they are very likely to be an experienced group who have previously operated under a different name. In Spain its seemingly quite easy to do so without bothering the authorities! |
Planigo Strikes Again! |
| Steven M of East Hyde Beds, writes:
I booked an apartment with Planigo in Tigne, France a month ago and paid all in advance. When we arrived, the local estate agent told us the appartment was overbooked and offered us a different awful appartment which was <0.1 star. After a horrible 4 hours of arguing, we finally got him to sign a letter of cancellation. Not a great start to a holiday. And rather embarassing for me any my guests to boot.
Since then I have tried to conact planigo by email 23 times and phone 12 times. When I could get through (rarely!!) they have come up wih every conceivable excuse to avoid refunding me my bill. NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER USE PLANIGO!! or their agent TRAVEL HORIZONS. I have tried every way to get back my money but they are cheats and thieves.
Establishment - Individual Concerned: Planigo, Aeromar Voyages, Travel Horizons, Agency des Cimes
Traverlwatchdog advice remains the same. Avoid this company like the plague! |
Southall Travel |
For a small organisation, Southall Travel attracts too many complaints. This is the most recent. Marie-Cybelle of London writes:
"My friend and I found a cheap flight on the internet through cheaptickets.co.uk to go to Rio De Janeiro. We telephoned and got transferred to Southall Travel. Booked the ticket but never recieved an invoice, email confirmation, or even our tickets. We then phoned up Iberia (the airline we were due to be travelling with)only to be told we had been booked to go to Buenos Aires. We had to track down the person who took our booking and enter negotiations with him for almost two weeks. He denied having made a mistake, and tried to accuse us of having booked to Buenos Aires which was a complete lie. His customer service was equally appaling, as he never called me back once, despite constantly reassuring me that he would. I had to chase after him constantly and was told on several occasions that he had gone home despite having told me that he would call me back in ten minutes. Eventually, he tried to charge us a cancellation fee of £320 for both tickets. I refused, so he then tried to bargain with me, bringing the price down to £100 pounds per ticket, again I adamantly refused. Why should we pay for his mistake? He then agreed to lower the price down to £50 per ticket, and I was forced to accept, due to the difficulty of the situation. I was disgusted by his attitude to customer care and by the complacency of the company as a whole". |
Planigo.com - The "Bait and Switch" Company - An experience to avoid |
Ther most recent complaint comes from Willis B of Honolulu who writes:
I followed an internet ad(Planigo.com) for a Best Western hotel in Ville-sur-mer.This ad was for 2 nights for 81 per night, much better than BW best internet price of 93.50. The booking company was Planigo.com. I went through the booking procedure and was promised a voucher for the room within 24 hours. The voucher arrived this morning and it said that they could not book me in the Best Western hotel in that town, but had switched me to another hotel in another town a few miles away, Hotrel Artemis in Beaulieu-Sur-Mer at a total of 198.28 for the two nights including service fee. The switch in hotels was unaccaptable, the switch in towns was unacceptable and the increased price was unacceptable. In my state of Hawaii, they have defined laws against "Bait and Switch" advertising- usual violators are used car salesmen.
I have sent them an E-mail requesting cancellation and notified VISA.The charge had not gone through yet. Hopefully, my E-mail will resolve the issue. I just thought that your organization could include Planigo.com in your file.
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| Tom W of Epsom and his partner booked through Planigo.com to stay at the hotel Saint Jean in La Ferte Bernard in order to attend the Le Mans 24 hours race. The hotel was booked by description from Planigo. When they arrrived, Tom and his partner found the following (his words): " we were handed a key to our room (Not forgetting this room was described as 'superior', for which we had paid alot of money), on opening the door to room number 27 the awful truth began to sink in immediately. The hand basin was absolutely disgusting, so filthy it had obviously not been cleaned properly , dried blood/spit ingrained dirt. Two cheap plastic cups were perched on the hand basin. Next our en suite shower was so poorly built, cheap think polycarbonate sides, after 1 minute the water did not drain away and if left would have flooded the room. Also very unclean. Then the bed - I would not ask my dog to sleep on or in it, it was presumably meant to be a four poster, the posts were fence posts, the cross pieces were 3'' x 1/2'' planks nailed to the posts, to finish off this utter joke two old shower curtains had been cut up and pinned with map markers to the posts!! The material/sheets/pillows were disgusting. The carpet was filthy, no wardrobe, just an old fashioned hat stand -the room measured approx 10'x10' maximum including the 'ensuite'shower. The electrics were exposed and in my opinion dangerous. No cleaning had been carried out under the bed because we found a previous occupants earplugs still boxed. No aircon. The toilet facilities did not improve either, the toilet was filthy and as it was used by all the guests on our floor it ran out of toilet paper on Saturday evening and was not replaced." Tom was charged €297.42 for three nights: The hotel room rate published by the hotel: €48 per night - much more than Planigo would have paid! Planigo insist that it is not their responsibility to check the condition of the hotels they sell! |
| "Not our fault" they will claim! However, a complainant recently started a booking on the internet via Planigo.com. He chose the French hotel he required and completed the request for a booking. A short while later he received an e-mail from the hotel demanding a photocopy of the identity page of his passport and both sides of his credit card! With identity theft growing at an alarming rate, he very wisely refused. However, the hotel charged him a 15% cancellation fee for accommodation he had not booked due to the unacceptable and quite outrageous booking conditions. If you are asked for similar details, refuse to give them. |
Another Beauty from E-Bookers |
This one comes from Robert T of Gerrards Cross:
Booked via internet for Business Class seat from Hong Kong to London via Helsinki with - yes wait for it - Ebookers. Arrived on 18
July 2006 at 7.30am to check having received, checked and printed booking confirmation to find Ebookers had cancelled my booking the night before. I called the Delhi call centre who claimed my credit card was declined despite their confirmation by email. I gave another credit card and they said a ticket was issued and gave me the ticket number. This took one hour on the phone at premium rate from Hong Kong! Back to the check in to find the reservation was in economy class. Back on the phone, yes it was a mistake with just 30 minutes to take off Ebookers promised to get me on the flight, hold for another 20 minutes, sorry the fare has gone up and we cant book, the flight is now closed. How can Ebookers help now - they can't. Can I have my money back and compensation - we dont know! Book with Cathay Pacific and waste 6 hours at the airport. What a company and now a legal case to pursue. |
| This is typical of the complaints we get about Ebookers and a number of other companies. However, some other companies like AirLine-Network attract far fewer complaints. Why? Well, generally the difference seems to the location of the call centres. Companies will call centres in India seems to attract far more complaints about a much wider variety of errors. Moreover, those with their administrators in UK are prepared to give information about their UK contact addresses. Those will call centres in India, particularly Ebookers, go to great lengths to hide their UK 'suits' from public exposure. They just don't want to hear complaints. |
EuropCar France & Italy
Sarah Robson, a London resident reports "I hired a car from Europcar out of Nice airport for a 2 week period, during which time a small dent was made on the rear offside bumper whilst the car was parked in a car park - we were not present and not at fault. On returning the car to the airport we reported the dent and were verbally assured that no charge would be made. We have subsequently been charged Euro 919.78 in damages. I have contacted Europcar who say it will take them 10 working days to find out why this amount has been charged".
Since this problem was first reported, Sarah has repeatedly asked for an explanation of the charges and for a refund. Nothing has been forthcoming.
There was a small dent in the bumper, that is not disputed. Whether or not Sarah was in the car at the time, if the damage is not insured under the contract, which it surely should be, perhaps Europcar has a legitimate claim. However, this was not a Rolls Royce and more than 900 Euros cannot be a fair charge. Where did the money go? Any guesses?
More recently the same Europcar outlet (Nice) charged in excess of €500 to replace a dented steel wheel on a Peugeot. The true cost? A maximum of €150. This company is owned by Volkswagen from whom one would expect far better service and impeccable integrity.
August 2006 - Alan (surname withheld) reports the use of a fairly common insurance scam by Europcar reps in Tuscany. On collecting his car he was asked if he would like the additional insurance cover at a cost of £120. He declined. The form (in Italian)was then prepared and he was told to sign in three places. Like many before him, he later found that his credit card had been debited for the additional insurance. These car hire reps get a high rate of commission on the additional insurance they charge to customers. When the forms you sign are in a foreign language, you are very vulnerable - TAKE CARE
Kensington Park Apartments
Ms C C , a writer from New York, USA complains "We booked a hotel London based on their website. When we arrived it was not at all as described or pictured, so we decided not to stay. Now the hotel operator is billing the American Express card every month in increasing amounts. AmEx does not want to deny the charges any more, since the hotelier is writing long false statements justifying his billing practice. The date in question is November 27th 2003".
In total, this hotel debited the complainants credit card several hundred US$. This was an unjustified charge for cancelling the booking. The compainant is now instituting legal action against the hotel to recover her money.
Before giving your credit card details to any company for bookings or guarantees, be very sure that you want to do so. Get yourself a credit card with a very low credit limit and use it for this type of transaction. It could save you from being a victim of fraud.
Timelinx.com/Global Travel
We have had a couple of recent reports about Timelinx/Global travel who were recently operating in Tenerife. They claim ABTA membership and take large sums of money from people they dupe into joining their holiday club. They are not, and have never been members of ABTA and it would be very unwise to give them any money
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There are fairys at the bottom of our garden! (Rose Fyleman 1877 - 1957)
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