Scammed

 

Nobody likes to be scammed. I hate that it happens to anyone and I really hate that it happened to me. Our recent trip to Oklahoma was the first trip we made without the benefit of an internet connection for the computer in the car. It was a necessity when we were running a business. Now it's a luxury and one we decided we could live without, particularly in light of Covid. Bottom line, we had to rely on our phones to make reservations. 

The thing I know about the Internet in general and Google in particular is that when you search on something, you don't necessarily get that. You get what other people have paid Google to show you. And there might be a whole page of people who paid for you to see something you didn't want to see. 

I wanted to see the information for the Hilton Garden Inn in Daphne, Alabama. If I'd been on a computer instead of a phone I might have seen the fine print of the URL that belonged to a third party reservations company - not Hilton Hotels. 

And now, for a brief moment, I'm going to rant about the "web economy" because most of it, near as I can tell, is a bunch of people who are getting between businesses and their customers and providing very little no value. But they add on fees making whatever you wanted to buy (in this case, a night in a hotel) far more expensive than it would have been if I'd phoned the business direct. But I was prevented from doing that because these third party creeps paid Google to show their contact details along with a map of where the hotel is located and I thought I was phoning Hilton. 

It took longer than I thought it should for the phone to be answered. And when they did answer, all the said was "Reservations". I thought I was talking to Hilton. They never told me I wasn't. The guy's name was Danny (or so he said) I had to repeat the name and city of the hotel for him at least three times, so I'm pretty sure he knew where we wanted to stay. I even asked if he needed my Hilton rewards number and he said they'd take care of that when I checked in. 

When we got to the Hilton Garden Inn in Daphne, they had no record of our reservation. But Danny Boy had texted me a confirmation. I pulled it up on my phone. Danny had booked us into the Hilton Garden Inn by the Airport in Mobile. Apparently our long day of driving wasn't over. They had no availability in Daphne and were powerless to change a booking that originated with a third party service anyway. 

So we trudged on to Mobile. I tried to phone them to see why they had switched hotels on me without my consent, but when you select the option to talk about an existing reservation, those people are NEVER going to answer their phone. 

So my credit card has been charged $50 more than it should have been to stay in a hotel that's a bit out of the way, and not the one I asked for. I didn't get any points on my rewards card, because of the third party people. All I got was complimentary water. I was not happy. I'm still not happy about this. But I've learned a thing or two about searching for something on a phone. 

Going forward, we should decide how far we're going to drive and book the hotel on a computer so we don't have to deal with the small print on the phone. An expensive lesson in money and time. It makes me hate scammers even more.