Can you imagine forking out a huge chunk of your hard-earned savings to pay for a vacation that turned out to be a scam? Well, this netizen sure knows the pain as he has recently been through it.
On 14 October, a netizen named Xavier Aranggoi Maurice from Sabah took to Facebook to share how he was cheated of RM4,878 for booking two rooms for eight nights at an apartment called the Cynosure Stido in Myeong-dong, South Korea.
“Please be extra careful when you make bookings because some hotels don’t even exist!” he wrote.
Source: Facebook
Xavier said that the reservation was done through Booking.com, which is a legit website by the way. After the booking, a guy named Eric who claimed to be the apartment owner contacted him for payment.
Source: Facebook
Just to make things clear, Booking.com doesn’t require full payment up front, which suggests that something was wrong when Eric requested for the payment. To secure the reservation, Xavier transferred the money anyway directly into Eric’s personal bank account.
He did receive the confirmation receipt of the payment through email but not the reservation. In fact, a quick browse on Booking.com shockingly revealed that the reservation was cancelled! Xavier then clarified with the ‘owner’ who then blatantly pushed all the blame back to the website. Cunning!
Source: Facebook
The Facebook post was shared over 4,700 times in just a few days with netizens pointing out that Xavier should never have transferred the money directly into the owner’s account. All transactions should be done through the website and customers are usually required to pay only when they physically check in at the hotel.
As we dug deeper on the internet, it appears that this apartment address is frequently used for scamming travellers. In fact, it may very well be non-existent!
Source: Trip Advisor
We hope this incident can serve as a reminder for travellers not to entertain messages from property owners. Hopefully, Xavier can get his money back as we’re sure he’d need it for his upcoming trip!
Also read: Japanese Govt Offers Tourists Up To 70% OFF Hotels in Hokkaido Starting 1 October
