Priceline, Priceline.com
Stole my money

Unfortunately this company takes all your credit card info before you realize you made a mistake.
Even after initialing a contract I was unaware that I was bidding on a trip I was researching. A few moments later I get "YOUR BID WAS ACCEPTED!". I was in shock. I entered no amount. I physically did not enter on my keyboard any numbers so I have no idea how it could have happened. I was charged over $600 ($300 for airfare, $300 for a rental car). The trip I was planning was for business and I needed to be in Seattle at a certain time or else there was no sense in going. The trip I placed a "bid" on had me arriving way too late in the day to justify going out there.
I called the company immediately to cancel the trip.

I got the usual run around but was able to cancel the flight only for a $100 charge. Now I needed to cancel the car reservation. Here was the problem. Priceline told me that the car reservation was not transferable or refundable. Now I'm stuck with a $300 loss for a car that was supposed to be rented on a trip I wasn't taking (because the plane trip was canceled). After explaining this to Priceline I was "thanked" for calling and informed I would be charged $17 dollars for canceling the car and that the cost of the rental would not be refunded, so I'm not just out the $17, I'm out the $300 for the car rental. When I asked why they couldn't get refund the car they told me over the phone that because "of a contractual agreement with our partners we cannot refund your money". Once they told me that I called Hertz to see if they could refund and cancel the car so I didn't lose my money. I was informed by Hertz that not only was it beyond their control because they didn't take the cc transaction but also that they didn't care if I did cancel it... It had nothing to do with them. Priceline took the money, Hertz didn't rent me a car and I'm just out the money.

Now, in my own personal recession of fighting to keep my tiny condo, I find myself losing money I can use to pay my mortgage. I may narrowly avoid foreclosure but it does not seem that I will recoup the $300 for a trip I didn't take to acquire paying work to help myself.

Thanks Priceline for the following:
-stealing my money
-having the worse customer service of all time
-designing a "bidding" system that you are unaware of your "bids"
-being robots
-being crooked
-not seeing the common sense approach of canceling a plane trip and the car attached to it.
-for charging me for something I didn't use and charging me a cancellation charge on top of that.

I will make it my personal mission to tell all my friends, associates, family members and even strangers about how bad this company is. More importantly I hope Priceline gets slapped with a class-action lawsuit that forces them to embarassingly go out of business. These business practices of theirs is flatly criminal and the consumer is getting raped on a daily basis by these clowns.

Company: Priceline, Priceline.com
Country: USA
Site: priceline.com

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