I scheduled a flight and hotel with Expedia in May.By late May I realized that I couldn't use the reservation that I had scheduled through Expedia and so I cancelled it. Rather than immediately issuing me a refund, the employees at the call center in India proceeded to require me to go through some completely unnecessary steps. I repeatedly called them (using the office phone, as I didn't have one at the time) and through long wait times and dropped calls, nothing came of it. Then when I was able to get through, I found out the amount that I was owed (about $411), but again through disconnects and dropped calls, my refund was never issued. I then called again and found that the employees instead of using my email address, which Expedia had, they had closed my file completely, so no one could help me. Again, instead of being apologetic about the whole affair and issuing a refund the legal team for Expedia demanded that I sign a %u201CMotion to Dismiss With Prejudice, %u201D which means that if I don%u2019t get my money I would have no legal recourse to get my refund. So, I obviously won%u2019t sign such a document. They then dropped that requirement and asked that I lie to the court and say that the matter has been settled BEFORE they%u2019d send me my money. I took them to small claims/conciliation court and won my case—STILL no refund! And guess what?!? They didn't require me to talk with them on the phone to get the money that the court had ordered!
Expedia is also hoping that you won't know how the law works. You are allowed to recover not only the cost of the resrevation, but also the filing fee with the court AND costs; for instance, to notify Expedia of the lawsuit you have have them served, which means that you have to send a copy of the suit to the server and use a money order to pay the server—so you have the cost of the server, the money order fee and postage. When you are in conciliation or small claims court, make sure that the judge/referee awards you all of those costs.
Expedia is hoping that you'll find the work and expense of getting your money back to be just too much—and then they get to keep your money! DON'T LET THEM!
If you take your case to conciliation or small claims court and you win, but not all your costs as you are allowed to claim, check to see if you can appeal to District Court.
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