Booking.com appear to be involved in ****/***** in Durban,. South Africa

BEWARE OF BOOKING.COM. THEY WILL NOT HELP YOU! They will only take your money and carry on with their ****s...

We believe Booking.com is a **** organization who cooperate with *****sters. They have no working phone number in South Africa. The phone numbers that local hotels have on record do not exist. They are in cooperation with the Royal Ushaka hotel in Rossberg in Durban to hoodwink unsuspecting customers. There are 2 Royal Ushaka Hotels in Durban. One is in Morningside and is a decent, convenient location. We stayed there last week and had to go back to Durban on business this week. The other Royal Ushaka Hotel is almost identical to the Morningside hotel in every way, name, logo, build out, etc. But the second hotel , which is in Rossberg and a much less desirable location, apparently has different owners and they appear to be using the fact that the name, logo and everything is identical to the morningside hotel to dupe unsuspecting people into booking with them through Booking.com. We were recently ******* by these people and accidentally booked the aRossberg hotel believing there was only 1 Royal Ushaka hotel and when we arrived at the Morningside hotel and discovered we had been duped, we objected and asked the ahotel in Rossberg to allow us to switch to the other hotel they advised only Booking.com could resolve the issue and place us with the Morningside hotel that we thought we had booked. They gave us the 2 phone numbers they had on file for Booking.com. Neither was a working number.

As Booking.com was unreachable by phone, as they are apparently based in the Netherlands, we had to communicate via messages online. We asked the Royal Ushaka hotel in Rossberg to cancel and asked for a transfer to the other hotel but they advised us that only Booking.com had the ability to do that. They said it was because Booking.com only releases the money to them 7 days after our stay. But Booking.com refused to offer any correction of the issue and refused even a partial refund.

In the end, we decided not to stay in the Rossberg hotel and paid a second set of fees to stay in the hotel we thought we had booked through Booking.com. When we enquired with them as to if this had ever happened before, one of the staff told us that it happens 'daily'. So we believe this is a *****ulent organization perpetrating a **** to keep a hotel that is in a less desirable location booked with business. Someone needs to warn people about Booking.com and their apparently *****ulent activities.