Janita Dubery and her husband were duped after the hotel booking they made through Agoda led them to a shopping centre. Photo / Supplied, Google Street View
Janita Dubery and her husband were duped after the hotel booking they made through Agoda led them to a shopping centre. Photo / Supplied, Google Street View
It was meant to be a stress-free Christmas holiday. Instead, a Kiwi couple were left stranded on Christmas Eve when the address for their hotel accommodation led them to a small shopping centre, writes Varsha Anjali.
Janita Dubery had just finished a stressful year of postgraduate studies, accompanied by sickness and dreary Christchurch weather when she and her husband decided they needed a break.
The festive period was an ideal time to take one. Dubery, 47, booked hotel accommodation for nine nights in Brisbane starting from December 24 through the online travel agency Agoda for herself and her husband to celebrate Christmas and New Year.
Agoda, headquartered in Singapore and a subsidiary of American travel technology company Booking Holdings (Booking.com is also a subsidiary of the same company), confirmed the booking in advance on October 10 and took payment on December 21.
Janita Dubery's booking confirmation for a "one bedroom one bathroom suite".
The contact phone number was invalid and the address took the couple to a shopping centre.
“I was really looking forward to an adult-only [time] away,” Dubery, a massage therapist, said of the holiday, which was the couple’s first Christmas away from their children.
Noting flights were cheaper if they flew a day before, the Christchurch residents booked an extra night’s accommodation on the Sunshine Coast through a different agency at a separate hotel.
Around 7pm on Christmas Eve, the pair arrived at the address booked with Agoda: 20 Bogong St, Riverhills, Brisbane.
The photo in the booking confirmation of the “one bedroom and one bathroom suite” looked innocuous: it had the bed, the white linen, the lamps, the goldish lighting, and the desk.
Instead what Dubery and her husband saw were shops. A sign nearby read: “Riverhills Plaza - Seven Days of Shopping Convenience”.
20 Bogong Street, Riverhills, Brisbane. Photo / Google Street View
There were no hotels.
The couple double-checked the address and tried an open small takeaway shop, thinking maybe they had to pick up their keys from the owner. But the woman inside had “no idea” what they were talking about.
They rang the phone number noted on the booking. It was invalid. And it was getting late.
“We were stuck with nowhere to go, and all the nearby hotels in the area ... were absolutely chocka,” Dubery told the Herald.
“The only accommodation [available] was right in the heart of Brisbane starting from $350 a night”.
What made matters worse was that the couple were unable to contact Agoda for help. When Dubery emailed customer support she received an automated reply that said the inbox was not monitored and it therefore “can’t guarantee a response”.
Janita Dubery in Brisbane.
Instead of offering a phone number for customer service on Agoda’s website customers are directed to a chatbot, or what the company calls its direct messaging feature.
A message on Agoda’s website reads: “While we understand you might be asking for an Agoda phone number, Agoda’s responsive digital platform ensures that all your queries and concerns are addressed faster and more conveniently via messaging.”
When Dubery tried the chatbot, she said the conversation went in circles with no real options to resolve the issues at hand.
“The only option to choose from when selecting your booking is ‘Main Menu” and the conversation circles on itself endlessly," she said.
She was forced to lean on the generosity of the only other person she knew in Brisbane: a former client from when she had lived in Hawke’s Bay two years ago. An acquaintance.
The contact was able to accommodate the pair for Christmas. After two days, the couple booked the remainder stay at the Brisbane City YHA, which was not booked through Agoda.
On December 25, Dubery received an email from Agoda stating that the hotel booking was rejected and that it needed 72 hours to confirm this with the hosts.
The email Janita Dubery received from Agoda on Christmas Day.
“We have reached out to the property to reconfirm that this booking has been rejected but have not received a definitive answer yet. Please allow us up to 72 hours from our initial contact to get a response from the property.
“We will inform you on the next steps as soon as we get more information from the property or the provided timeframe expires,” the email read, which Dubery shared with the Herald.
Every three days Dubery said she continued to receive the same email signed off with a different name.
“At some point, they offered us a refund and a US$22 (NZ$39) credit. I responded to the refund, only to get another email as the one above. This continued ... till the day of our return on Jan 2nd at which time they requested an alternative booking confirmation in order to process our refund,” Dubery said.
An email from Agoda to Janita Dubery.
But she didn’t think obtaining a refund after having paid for a fake listing should be dependent on providing the company evidence they found another place to stay. “How is that even relevant?”
“A reply to that email led us right back to the start of having to wait 72 hours for the host to reply,” she added.
“I was just horrified that this had happened to us and of all days on bloody Christmas Eve.”
Agoda’s refund policy states that it is “committed to providing you with a simple and efficient refund process”. In order to request a refund, it advises customers to head to the Agoda Help Centre webpage, which leads to FAQs and the chatbot.
The company, which was founded in 2005 in Thailand, has not responded to the Herald’s request for comment.
However, shortly after we put forward our queries to them, Dubery said she received an email directly from an Agoda customer service manager offering a full refund, which she received on January 9, and compensation for what was paid towards their alternative accommodation.
In December 2017, Thai newspaper Khaosod reported a similar case: Agoda initially refused to refund a woman after she paid 150,000 bhat ($7745) for a fake hotel booking through its website.
According to Khaosod,Sulawan Luckchonlateefiled a charge of fraud against Agoda.
The online hotel booking giant allegedly agreed to refund Luckchonlatee after dealing with the Thai government office, reported Asian media company Coconuts.
Similar claims have been made through the online review platform Trustpilot, which, out of more than 41,000 reviews, ranks Agoda 1.3 stars. At the time of writing this story, the most recent review on Agoda’s Trustpilot detailed another possible fake listing.
A Trustpilot review for Agoda. Screenshot / Trustpilot
Consumer NZ acting head of research and advocacy Jessica Walker said, in general, they were not fans of of third-party booking sites.
“Because even though you have rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act, if something goes wrong it can be harder to put things right. If the company you’re dealing with has gone cold, call your bank as soon as possible and request a chargeback,” Walker told the Herald.
“We recommend booking directly through the hotel, it’s a way to safeguard yourself from potential scams, and it could even be cheaper too.”
Varsha Anjali is a multimedia journalist at the Herald. Based in Auckland, she covers travel, culture and more.
