On Sunday, June 22 I found lastminutetravel.com (LMT) and booked a reservation for a hotel in SF for three days while I worked a temp job. I was looking for affordability and they seemed to offer it, but at what cost??? After driving from NV to CA, I thought that I had better check online to see if there were any comments about the hotel, since I'd be staying there for a few days and knew nothing about it.
To my surprise, I uncovered several complaints from others who had just recently stayed there that the hotel had an infestation problem with bedbugs and small rodents and that some guests had actually taken home scabies as a result. I called the hotel and it was confirmed that yes, they did have an infestation problem, that the health dept.inspectors were down there and that they had sprayed to try and remedy the situation. The latest complaint about someone bringing home bedbugs was dated 6/18/08, I was to stay from 6/23-6/26 and I didn't feel comfortable that the hotel had completely "remedied" the problem in only 3 days.in addition, there were over 100 negative complaints about the hotel being in a seedy location, looking nothing like the advertised photo, not having secure door or window locks, the list went on, yet, LMT rated this hotel a 2-star facility.
In trying to recoup my $210.03 for the three nights that I cancelled, the very same day as making the reservation, I was advised by their customer service department that they were not going to refund my money, even though the hotel assured me that LMT would NOT be charged for my cancellation. Therefore, LMT just pocketted my money with no expense to them with the statement that they advised me at the time of booking that a full fare penalty would be put in place if I cancelled my reservation. Who in their right mind wouldn't cancel?
My next step is to contact Wells Fargo Bank to file a complaint against LMT and try to have them refund my account and if that doesn't work, I can only consider filing a small claims suit against them; either way, I INTEND to get them to see how unreasonable they are being and refund me my money. At first they told me that if I had proof that I had booked another hotel room through their site, they would consider refunding me my money, but when I replied that I hadn't rebooked, simply because 1) I didn't know that was an option; and 2) there were two different customer service reps who advised me that I would be liable for one of the three nights, or $60, and the other advisd I would be liable for the entire stay, or $210.03. Either way, I was already dissatisfied, so why rebook until the issue was resolved. As a result, I ended up staying with my brother and commuting into SF (nearly 2.5 hrs one-way).
Due to the extenuating circumstances of the hotels condition, should I be the one penalized by a third party site when I feel uncomfortable knowing that I could potentially contract the same disease due to a known/confirmed problem such as an infestation of bedbugs? What liability does LMT have for listing a hotel on their site that has a large volume of complaints against it as a 2-star facility when even the health department's inspectors are all over them?
Either way, whether I get my money back or not, I question the unethical business practices of lastminutetrave.com. It seems like they actually want their customers to stay in dumpshacks just as long as they get paid.in addition, after several calls to their customer service department, I was lucky if I got someone on the phone who could understand/speak English, it was nothing short of a huge frustration. Stay away from this site! Do your homework first as there are several articles written by Laura at USA Today regarding issues with this company.
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