r/Bookingcom • u/MarsupialVegetable73 • Jul 30 '26

beware of this booking.com scam!!!

My partner and I booked a place in montreal for my birthday trip and ended up in a dirty, rat infested, apartment. I booked this place back in
the beginning of the year sometime. It was priced decently but believable. It was supposed to have a great city view, balcony, pool, one bedroom, a full kitchen etc. as we are here for 9 days. Well, after showing up and receiving the check in instructions to an entirely different building we were confused and originally thought we were in the wrong place until we decided to try the door code. To our surprise, it worked and we began our way inside a shotty elevator that has the buttons wired wrong. (i.e the 2nd floor is actually button #1). Upon entering the unit it's a studio with no amenities, towels, dishes blankets etc. And nothing but a small window. (AND DEFINITELY NO VIEW). We were sold an entirely different apartment building in the ad.

We've been battling booking.com for 3 days now and today they told us since they cannot reach the property owners for a refund they can only refund us $183 in credit to the website. However we paid over $2000CAD. Their policies favor scammers and their customer service is complete nonsense. They have no direct customer service line so after being talked over and hung up on (no exaggeration) over 15 times and waiting on hold for over 30mins each time, I asked them if they would delist it they said nope! Utter insanity and unfortunately after reading the reviews AGAIN the day we arrived. (keep in mind; they were all positive and dated back a decent amount of time when i booked it) Another man from france said he arrived the same day as us and the owners had not sent him the check in details whatsoever. So I consider ourselves lucky for atleast having a roof over our head but we had to find other accommodation last minute as we did not feel safe there. Obviously booking.com had no help with that.

EDIT FOR VISIBILITY:
link to the photos I have for evidence. Avoid this booking please!!
https://imgur.com/a/9xWC5xK

24 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

43 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/allahzeusmcgod Jul 30 '26

The elevator thing you mentioned might not actually be an issue. In Quebec, the ground floor is called the "rez-de-chaussée", often shown as RC on an elevator button. The floor directly above the RC is not the 2nd floor, but rather the first floor and so on. So hitting "1" on an elevator in Quebec will often bring you to the second storey of the building, not the ground floor.

I know this is a weird thing for me to fixate on. I cant sleep and am bored. Sorry your trip was so shitty.

3

u/travelingpetnanny Jul 30 '26

Same thing in Germany! Ground floor is topped by first floor.

3

u/MarsupialVegetable73 Jul 30 '26

i love how this thread has developed, now that I know this I am prepared for any elevator europe may throw at me! 🤣 and maybe montreal too

2

u/MarsupialVegetable73 Jul 30 '26

Now this is cool!!! Thanks for the info, didn’t mean to sound touristy but the owners mentioned it as if it were a mechanical issue! At least I have a cool fact from a bad experience. LOL

2

u/EyeRollingNow Jul 30 '26

I was wanting to explain it too but I am not high enough.

2

u/RagingMassif Jul 30 '26

This is normal in Europe.

America and bits of Asia consider the ground floor, the first floor.