A host just scammed me for 237.50 euros through Booking.com

Let me tell you how “Jardines Banus Apt” just got money from me and won’t even let me stay at their place while booking does nothing to fix it.

It is quite unfortunate having to travel and make a reservation to a place that will be a nightmare for the rest of the week, it is even worst when you are using an app that supposedly is there to protect you against this, and they do nothing to stop it.

This is being my hell this week, as I have a work meeting on Friday in the city of Marbella, I decided to book via Booking because, to be honest, they “almost” never failed me before, even when I was in Hong Kong. The place I chose was a total shithole with fake pictures, faking that they were a super nice stay, Booking quickly refunded me and offered me new options. In Vietnam when the place was overbooked and didn’t notify them, Booking quickly found me another hotel nearby…

They were quite awesome but… apparently not anymore.

My surprise came in when there were only 3 nearby places available in the city for my dates, that is really odd on Booking but, as I know them and they were recommending the top location, I quickly checked Jardines Banus Apt. and decided to book a room.

It is weird but, I couldn’t find the reviews on the phone app, only 3 yellow squares that said: “Booking recommends this location” as well as “There is only one room left” to put some pressure on me.

I quickly checked around and the first page of reviews seemed ok so, as soon as I booked in the money flew away from my PayPal account and a couple of minutes after I received a message:

Hi, send the deposit fee of 2.000 Euros to this bank account.

Excuse me? Since when is a Deposit fee sent to a private bank account when you book through booking? All locations will keep a hold of some money when you check in and then return it when you are out but will never ask you to send them via Bank Transfer (as everybody knows there is no getting it back if you do so)

On top of that, I said I would arrive around 9–10 PM and my request was denied.