Glen Toyer

They’ve done it again ! Qantas FF has rejected the legitimate points I earned from shopping online with one of their partners – Dyson Australia.

I purchased a vacuum cleaner directly from the Dyson website, not eBay. I decided to make this purchase solely because of the "3 points for $1 spent" offer. I did this by firstly connecting to Dyson through the Qantas shopping website where the red circle was displayed with the message that "Qantas Shopping has access to this website". I know enough by now not to use Extensions, and therefore I didn't. Although why this would be a problem I'll never know as the staff can never explain it.

After several months, my points had not been credited, so I lodged a missing points inquiry form. Eventually after submitting further financial information on the purchase (twice) and waiting nearly 3 weeks, they finally responded saying “We have looked into your query and unfortunately, can now confirm that the store has declined the points earn on this purchase. As the transaction tracking was awarded to another source, ie you shopped another offer, direct retailer edm or engaged a browser plug in for example”.

As I have previously said on numerous occasions to Qantas Shopping – their system is way too user un-friendly and complex. Scrap it and start again. This would also enable them to sack most of their employees, who take forever to answer these sort of missing points inquiries anyway, and who just continually make mistakes. Here's a chance QANTAS to save some big money. If there were no inquiries about missing points, there would be no need for the hundreds of staff you employ to investigate them would there ?

Dyson benefited from my purchase as a result of the Qantas FF program - no other reason - but not any more. I won't be doing business with them ever again. Both Qantas and Dyson are just using the FF incentive to make money and are trying to avoid allocating points wherever possible. The cost to them of the points redeemed are miniscule compared to the cost of the purchase. You'd think their reputation would be worth far more than the negative reviews that are being lodged everywhere online about them.

When I contact Dyson with a forlorn attempt to review my case and make a formal complaint, I've no doubt Dyson will blame Qantas, as Qantas has blamed Dyson. I've seen it all before - too many times! What Dyson and all other sellers on the Qantas Shopping website should do, is to complain to Qantas about their system. It's not working for their customers and will badly affect their sales. Obviously the poor old customer carries no weight when complaining to Qantas, but maybe the sellers do. The people I'm emailing at Qantas FF are probably from an Asian Call Centre which means they take no responsibility and do nothing about it.

I have requested that a complaint be escalated to more senior management but no doubt it will just get ignored again.

They’ve done it again ! Qantas FF has rejected the legitimate points I earned from shopping online with one of their partners – Dyson Australia.

I purchased a vacuum cleaner directly from the Dyson website, not eBay. I decided to make this purchase solely because of the "3 points for $1 spent" offer. I did this by firstly connecting to Dyson through the Qantas shopping website where the red circle was displayed with the message that "Qantas Shopping has access to this website". I know enough by now not to use Extensions, and therefore I didn't. Although why this would be a problem I'll never know as the staff can never explain it.

After several months, my points had not been credited, so I lodged a missing points inquiry form. Eventually after submitting further financial information on the purchase (twice) and waiting nearly 3 weeks, they finally responded saying “We have looked into your query and unfortunately, can now confirm that the store has declined the points earn on this purchase. As the transaction tracking was awarded to another source, ie you shopped another offer, direct retailer edm or engaged a browser plug in for example”.

As I have previously said on numerous occasions to Qantas Shopping – their system is way too user un-friendly and complex. Scrap it and start again. This would also enable them to sack most of their employees, who take forever to answer these sort of missing points inquiries anyway, and who just continually make mistakes. Here's a chance QANTAS to save some big money. If there were no inquiries about missing points, there would be no need for the hundreds of staff you employ to investigate them would there ?

Dyson benefited from my purchase as a result of the Qantas FF program - no other reason - but not any more. I won't be doing business with them ever again. Both Qantas and Dyson are just using the FF incentive to make money and are trying to avoid allocating points wherever possible. The cost to them of the points redeemed are miniscule compared to the cost of the purchase. You'd think their reputation would be worth far more than the negative reviews that are being lodged everywhere online about them.

When I contact Dyson with a forlorn attempt to review my case and make a formal complaint, I've no doubt Dyson will blame Qantas, as Qantas has blamed Dyson. I've seen it all before - too many times! What Dyson and all other sellers on the Qantas Shopping website should do, is to complain to Qantas about their system. It's not working for their customers and will badly affect their sales. Obviously the poor old customer carries no weight when complaining to Qantas, but maybe the sellers do. The people I'm emailing at Qantas FF are probably from an Asian Call Centre which means they take no responsibility and do nothing about it.

I have requested that a complaint be escalated to more senior management but no doubt it will just get ignored again.

I replied to an email eBay sent me after I had made a purchase. It stated “Thanks for your recent order. It looks like there was an issue completing your purchase. Please try purchasing again”. It seemed that there may have been a problem between eBay and my bank and the payment wasn’t processed.
Despite receiving confirmation on their webpage that my original purchase had successfully gone through with payment of $102.98, after receiving the email I decided to make the payment again, using exactly the same credit card. On the same day the second payment went through, however I was very concerned that the payment required had increased to $112.98. This was because my original purchase included an eBay discount code, saving me $10. On my second attempt to make the purchase the code had disappeared. I needed the item straight away, so I just paid the higher amount, expecting eBay to give me a refund of $10.
I used the same credit card and it was not my fault that something may have happened at eBay or at my bank with the processing. I assumed eBay would honour its own discount code, which I requested. It was only $10 which means nothing to this giant multi-national.
eBay’s reply stated “if you would have applied this code while making the payment, discount would have been applied to your order. Unfortunately you have missed to apply the voucher, we won't be able to issue you a refund.”
I made a formal complaint and asked that this decision be reconsidered by senior management. Haven’t heard a thing back from eBay !
As a long term eBay customer who has made many purchases, I am disgusted at the absolute and complete impossibility it is to try and contact them – by phone or email. I often have a need to be able to send detailed and sometimes complex information with attachments and the only effective way is by email, however like thousands of other companies these days who want to hide from their customers, eBay does not provide an email address.

I eventually found my way to their hopeless chat bot and asked to speak to a real person. The bot stated “An agent will be with you in 1 minute. Is that OK?” After half an hour I was still waiting, and then just gave up. Why don’t they want to communicate with their customers ? They’re just pathetic.

I did find an email address that worked by doing a Google search, it’s just that the eventual result proved to be just as hopeless.

I made a click and collect purchase from PetBarn through the Qantas Shopping website specifically to earn the double Qantas Frequent Flyer points that were advertised. When, after 2 months, the points had not shown up in my FF account, I emailed Qantas regarding the missing points. After contacting PetBarn to verify the purchase Qantas declined the points for various reasons that made no sense. Both Qantas and PetBarn blamed each other for the tracking failure as well as me for not following their convoluted and complex system.
Qantas admitted "Our system is designed to track purchases automatically; however, as tracking relies on multiple factors, there are instances where transactions may not be recorded as expected. While we continue working with our retail partners to optimise this process, we unfortunately cannot guarantee that all purchases will be tracked successfully."
I know I did the right thing and followed all the correct procedures with my purchase through PetBarn. There is something seriously wrong with their system, but they won’t admit it.
Their investigation apparently revealed that “the transaction tracking indicates the use of another source, such as shopping through a direct retailer EDM or utilizing a browser plug-in” (whatever that means). If it is too complex for the average customer to understand and follow then it should be scrapped and a new simpler model devised.
I'm a very experienced computer user and have been having lots of issues over the years with the Qantas Shopping system which I believe is defective. As a result of these issues I became well aware early on of what I had to do to get a purchase with points. I make a lot of purchases online, mainly from eBay, through Qantas Shopping. They have declined my points on some of these occasions as well, despite the fact that I have followed their complicated system to the letter.
Depending on which staff member handles my missing points inquiries, in some instances they will grant my points even though their system hasn’t recorded the purchase, in the interests of customer service. Unfortunately not in the latest instance with PetBarn.
Clearly I have made legitimate online purchases through the Qantas Shopping site. Isn't that all that should matter ? Isn’t the aim of the site to encourage shoppers to make purchases with Qantas partners ?

Why on earth would you want to lose a customer forever and suffer from numerous bad reviews, just for the sake of a few points that are hardly worth anything to me anyway, and probably costs Qantas and PetBarn a pittance ?

As I promised to do, I have removed myself from PetBarn’s membership database and will not shop with them ever again.

Although I'm a very long standing Qantas Frequent Flyer, I try my hardest to avoid flying with them. The customer service is poor, not only from Qantas Shopping, but the airline as a whole. I get better service and availability from the other loyalty programs that I'm a member of (Virgin, Emirates, Etihad, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines). Qantas FF points are pretty worthless as I've never been able to find a reward seat on a Qantas flight to a destination and time of my choosing.
I will not accept the blame game where neither Qantas or PetBarn will take any responsibility for a failed system.
Use PetBarn for Qantas FF points at your peril.

I made a click and collect purchase from PetBarn through the Qantas Shopping website specifically to earn the double Qantas Frequent Flyer points that were advertised. When, after 2 months, the points had not shown up in my FF account, I emailed Qantas regarding the missing points. After contacting PetBarn to verify the purchase Qantas declined the points for various reasons that made no sense. Both Qantas and PetBarn blamed each other for the tracking failure as well as me for not following their convoluted and complex system.
Qantas admitted "Our system is designed to track purchases automatically; however, as tracking relies on multiple factors, there are instances where transactions may not be recorded as expected. While we continue working with our retail partners to optimise this process, we unfortunately cannot guarantee that all purchases will be tracked successfully."
I know I did the right thing and followed all the correct procedures with my purchase through PetBarn. There is something seriously wrong with their system, but they won’t admit it.
Their investigation apparently revealed that “the transaction tracking indicates the use of another source, such as shopping through a direct retailer EDM or utilizing a browser plug-in” (whatever that means). If it is too complex for the average customer to understand and follow then it should be scrapped and a new simpler model devised.
I'm a very experienced computer user and have been having lots of issues over the years with the Qantas Shopping system which I believe is defective. As a result of these issues I became well aware early on of what I had to do to get a purchase with points. I make a lot of purchases online, mainly from eBay, through Qantas Shopping. They have declined my points on some of these occasions as well, despite the fact that I have followed their complicated system to the letter.
Depending on which staff member handles my missing points inquiries, in some instances they will grant my points even though their system hasn’t recorded the purchase, in the interests of customer service. Unfortunately not in the latest instance with PetBarn.
Clearly I have made legitimate online purchases through the Qantas Shopping site. Isn't that all that should matter ? Isn’t the aim of the site to encourage shoppers to make purchases with Qantas partners ?

Why on earth would you want to lose a customer forever and suffer from numerous bad reviews, just for the sake of a few points that are hardly worth anything to me anyway, and probably costs Qantas and PetBarn a pittance ?

As I promised to do, I have removed myself from PetBarn’s membership database and will not shop with them ever again.

Although I'm a very long standing Qantas Frequent Flyer, I try my hardest to avoid flying with them. The customer service is poor, not only from Qantas Shopping, but the airline as a whole. I get better service and availability from the other loyalty programs that I'm a member of (Virgin, Emirates, Etihad, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines). Qantas FF points are pretty worthless as I've never been able to find a reward seat on a Qantas flight to a destination and time of my choosing.
I will not accept the blame game where neither Qantas or PetBarn will take any responsibility for a failed system.
Use Qantas Shopping at your peril.

I selected a Ring Video Doorbell - 2nd generation mainly for the purpose of detecting possible parcel theft at my front door. Whilst it did the job perfectly for the first month, I was dismayed to find out that all of my video detections were no longer being stored after that time. You have to pay an additional $50 per year, for the life of the product, to have up to 180 days of my video footage stored in the cloud. As a pensioner this is not an insignificant amount for me.
Without the so-called “Ring Protect Plan“ there is no video available of any caller or incident that has occurred at my front door, which makes the whole purpose of the item useless. I can only get a live view of my front door. By the time the camera detects someone who may be stealing parcels and rings my phone, the intruder has gone and there is nothing to show. The item is only of use as a simple doorbell, for which you can buy much cheaper products.
This product is expensive and the basically mandatory subscription service is a very costly extra. The item should at the very least come with a free 30 day local storage solution.
I don’t know why the door bell camera can’t utilise the same technology as the dash cam, where a month’s worth of footage could be stored and continuously overwritten on a micro SD card in your phone.

A few experiences that I had planned to visit, and at the time were listed as accepting the card, no longer did, or were no longer free but only offered a discount.

On 2nd March 2023, I purchased a suit jacket on eBay for my wife to take on our overseas trip to Europe leaving on 23rd March. The seller’s estimated delivery date was 6th – 12th March. The seller despatched the item on 4th March. I live in Beerwah on the Sunshine Coast in Qld, and the seller in NSW, so it shouldn’t take too long to deliver.

Unfortunately I found out after the purchase that the seller’s courier was Fastway Couriers (now known as Aramex). Fastway changed its name to distance itself from all the bad reviews and complaints it has received over the years. You only have to take a look at:
• Product Review 1.2 out of 5 stars from 8164 genuine reviews.
• Trust Pilot 97% of 1533 reviews are "Bad".
• ARAMEX (Fastways) Complaints Facebook Group of 17,000 members

Unfortunately I’ve had nothing but problems with at least 4 previous parcels that have been sent to me by Aramex. I have tried ringing their Sunshine Coast depot but they don't answer the phone. When I did manage to contact them on one past occasion to make a complaint the office girl just hung up on me.
Their excuses have been that they don't deliver to homes in Beerwah (even though their voice mail messages say they do), the sender didn't pay enough to have the parcel delivered door to door, or I have to go and pick it up at a newsagent at Landsborough (15 min drive away) but they hadn't told me to do so !

On this occasion - 15th March, when my parcel had not arrived, I checked the Aramex Tracking details provided by the seller. The last entry stated that on 10th March it was on the Gold Coast in transit to the Sunshine Coast. 7 days has now passed without any update as to its location. Not updating makes their Tracking facility completely useless to the consumer.

I tried ringing the Sunshine Coast depot, but the phone disconnected after I had been on hold for nearly 30 minutes! I then sent an email to their head office. Surprisingly, about an hour later, I received a phone call from the local depot (the same girl I’d had a previous run-in with – how she’s still got her job I’ll never know). She must have received a well-deserved ‘rocket’ from the big boss to get back to me to resolve my missing parcel. Regrettably she knew nothing, did not know where my parcel was, did not apologise, and put the blame on the Brisbane depot where she thought it might be being held up. Why parcels for the Sunshine Coast from Sydney need to go via the Gold Coast and then Brisbane, rather than direct, is beyond me.

Changing their company name has obviously made no improvement to their delivery times, their reliability, customer service, or their complaint handling. This company should not be in business. Australia Post offers a far superior service.

My parcel is now obviously lost, or stolen. My wife now has no jacket to wear in Europe where it is quite cold.

I am doing everything I can to warn senders not to use Aramex, as well adding to the bad reviews on as many social media and review websites that I can.

On 2nd March 2023, I purchased a suit jacket on eBay for my wife to take on our overseas trip to Europe leaving on 23rd March. The seller’s estimated delivery date was 6th – 12th March. The seller despatched the item on 4th March. I live in Beerwah on the Sunshine Coast in Qld, and the seller in NSW, so it shouldn’t take too long to deliver.

Unfortunately I found out after the purchase that the seller’s courier was Fastway Couriers (now known as Aramex). Fastway changed its name to distance itself from all the bad reviews and complaints it has received over the years. You only have to take a look at:
• Product Review 1.2 out of 5 stars from 8164 genuine reviews.
• Trust Pilot 97% of 1533 reviews are "Bad".
• ARAMEX (Fastways) Complaints Facebook Group of 17,000 members

Unfortunately I’ve had nothing but problems with at least 4 previous parcels that have been sent to me by Aramex. I have tried ringing their Sunshine Coast depot but they don't answer the phone. When I did manage to contact them on one past occasion to make a complaint the office girl just hung up on me.
Their excuses have been that they don't deliver to homes in Beerwah (even though their voice mail messages say they do), the sender didn't pay enough to have the parcel delivered door to door, or I have to go and pick it up at a newsagent at Landsborough (15 min drive away) but they hadn't told me to do so !

On this occasion - 15th March, when my parcel had not arrived, I checked the Aramex Tracking details provided by the seller. The last entry stated that on 10th March it was on the Gold Coast in transit to the Sunshine Coast. 7 days has now passed without any update as to its location. Not updating makes their Tracking facility completely useless to the consumer.

I tried ringing the Sunshine Coast depot, but the phone disconnected after I had been on hold for nearly 30 minutes! I then sent an email to their head office. Surprisingly, about an hour later, I received a phone call from the local depot (the same girl I’d had a previous run-in with – how she’s still got her job I’ll never know). She must have received a well-deserved ‘rocket’ from the big boss to get back to me to resolve my missing parcel. Regrettably she knew nothing, did not know where my parcel was, did not apologise, and put the blame on the Brisbane depot where she thought it might be being held up. Why parcels for the Sunshine Coast from Sydney need to go via the Gold Coast and then Brisbane, rather than direct, is beyond me.

Changing their company name has obviously made no improvement to their delivery times, their reliability, customer service, or their complaint handling. This company should not be in business. Australia Post offers a far superior service.

My parcel is now obviously lost, or stolen. My wife now has no jacket to wear in Europe where it is quite cold.

I am doing everything I can to warn senders not to use Aramex, as well adding to the bad reviews on as many social media and review websites that I can.

I ordered a Samsung S21 mobile phone from Wish.com at a very attractive price. Unfortunately it wasn’t until after I had made the purchase that I found out by Google searching that the Wish website is full of Chinese made counterfeit goods, including the Samsung branded phone. I didn’t know that phones could be cloned. Within 2 hours I tried to contact Wish to cancel the order but they wouldn’t allow it as “the refund window had closed”, even though shipping of the product wasn’t scheduled for another 7 days .
I tried various ways to contact them, however it was impossible to bypass their automated, computer-generated, responses through their email address, and their so-called “support assistant” (online chat). It’s impossible to communicate with a real person.
Fortunately I managed to get a chargeback on my credit card from Citibank, so I haven’t lost out. I just feel so stupid by being sucked in by a cheap price.
Wish.com, supposedly based in California, is not a genuine online retailer, their customer support is non-existent, and they are acting illegally by profiting from the sale of counterfeit goods. They should be shut down by the American Government.
Stay away from this website – it’s just too risky.

Very disappointing that my 11.45 am flight from Newcastle to Brisbane was cancelled, and with no reason given. The alternative flight time of 7.30 am was not very acceptable to me, and there were no other flights on the day. Not only did I lose nearly half a day with my family that I hadn't seen in over 3 years, but I then had to get up at about 4 am to catch such an early flight back home. I really preferred to cancel the new flight altogether and catch a Jetstar flight which left at 11.45 am - about the same time as my original Virgin flight.
Therefore I followed their instructions to accept the change, and ring the contact number to cancel. Why you can't cancel online is beyond me. I tried on two occasions to make the call and was on hold for half an hour, and then for an hour and a half, without any response. In both cases I had to hang up as I had other commitments. Do they really think that their customers have nothing better to do with their time and listen to their stupid and repetitive message ? Maybe they're not aware that their Philippine call centre (one of my beefs) is not answering their phones !
So I had to try another means of contacting them. Another one of my beefs, like with all major organisations these days, is that they don't provide an email address on their website to allow customers to contact them. This a great way to do business and to engender customer loyalty ! What are they afraid of ? I thought I was lucky to find a couple of Virgin email addresses on a Google search, however both emails bounced. So I now have no way to make contact with Virgin Australia.
If the new owners are going to make a go of it, then they'll have to make drastic improvements to their customer service, and using Covid19 is no excuse for bad service.
I will try and never use Virgin to fly again.

I recently purchased two items from two separate sellers on eBay. After several weeks the items had not arrived. I found out that both sellers had used Aramex (formerly Fastway) as their Couriers, and my items had been returned to sender without any reference to me. This has happened to me on a number of previous occasions. I have been told by Aramex that this was because my home was outside their courier delivery area and the seller had not paid the required extra fee for delivery.
I was also told that for such locations, buyers can pick up their items from a newsagent in the town of Landsborough. This is about a half hour round trip drive for me. Whilst I shouldn’t have to, I may be prepared to do this to get my item, Aramex doesn’t bother to tell you that there is a parcel waiting there for you. So how are you supposed to know ? Sellers don’t let buyers know who their courier company is, so again how are we supposed to know ? Aramex just returns the item to sender without any reference to the buyer.
I live in Beerwah (population 7000), a small town on the Sunshine Coast within one of the fastest growing areas in Australia, and only a 1 hour drive from Brisbane. It is not exactly the outback ! What reputable courier company would not deliver to such a town ? According to their tracking, one of my parcels had arrived at the Sunshine Coast from Melbourne. Fastway’s Sunshine Coast depot is only a half hour drive from where I live, so it must cost them a lot more to return an item to Melbourne rather than to actually deliver it to Beerwah! Go figure !
No-one from Aramex told me that I had to pick up my parcel from a local store. No note was left in my mail box, no phone call or SMS, but in any case I am retired and am always home. No attempt was made to deliver to my home. Free delivery on eBay means delivery to a buyer's home address.
One of the sellers re-sent my items by Australia Post and it arrived without incident (just several weeks late !). The other seller had refunded me despite instructions from me that I still wanted the item. Eventually I had to re-purchase it again. I’m waiting on it to be delivered again by Aramex.
They are the most hopeless courier service you could ever imagine. DO NOT USE THEM. Whilst Australia Post can sometimes be slow, they do always deliver to my home address.

Pet Circle claims to deliver their products within 4 days to regional areas. 10 days after my dog’s medication had not arrived I phoned them. They said they would contact Couriers Please to see what had happened. The tracking number on their invoice supplied to me turned out to be Pet Circle’s own tracking number and not that of the courier. All that told me was that the item had left their warehouse so was pretty useless. They then provided me with the courier company’s tracking number which didn’t work when I tried entering it online !
After a number of phone calls and several emails, all dealt with by different staff, they offered me a refund or a replacement order. I advised them that I really needed the product delivered urgently as my dog’s medicine was now overdue and didn’t really want a refund at that time. I requested that it be re-sent by Express Post or overnight courier (but not with Couriers Please). A rather terse email was then received after a further 2 day delay from a Phoebe stating “We do not provide express post or overnight courier services.”
I decided to contact Couriers Please myself to see what had happened. They told me that my parcel was unable to be delivered as the driver couldn't locate my house. My address can be clearly found on Google Maps. I've never had any problem with other online deliveries to my house. They say they advised the seller who then told them to return it back to them. All of this was done without any reference to me, despite me emailing the seller the day before this happened advising that my goods had still not arrived. I told Pet Circle that Couriers Please was a pathetic excuse for a courier company and recommended they do not use them.

13 days after my purchase I got an email from a Natasha stating that they were still looking into the issue with Couriers Please. This was 4 days after they had requested a return to sender from the courier company ! I also received an email from them stating that my order had been delivered which was rubbish.
I was not prepared to wait another 10 days for possible delivery, so I cancelled the order and requested a full refund plus compensation. I also requested a call back from the General Manager and an apology, but of course none of that happened.
I then purchased the same product from another online seller, Budget Pet Products, from whom I had used previously and who had excellent prices and customer service. The item was also about $8 cheaper (so much for Pet Circle’s “best price guarantee”), including a surcharge for sending it by Express Post which took only 2 days to arrive, and Australia Post managed to find my house !
I won’t be ordering from Pet Circle again. Budget Pet Products is a much more reliable option.

My parcel failed to be delivered 10 days after it they picked it up from the online seller. On contacting Couriers Please some 6 days later, they told me that it was unable to be delivered as the driver couldn't locate my house. My house is clearly located on Google Maps. I've never had any problem with other online deliveries to my house. They say they advised the seller who then told them to return it back to them. All of this was done without any reference to me, despite me emailing the seller the day before this happened advising that my goods had not arrived.

Couriers Please is a pathetic excuse for a courier company. Do not use them.

I requested an on-site quote from Aqua Blast, Sunshine Coast, for cleaning of my exposed aggregate driveway, and tiled and paved alfresco areas. My house was newly built and with all the recent heavy rains and red volcanic mud in the area, the driveway had suffered a lot of brown staining while the construction and landscaping was being completed.

Aqua Blast sprayed a small test area of iron staining with a chemical, and initially said they could clean it. The tiles, grout and pavers would also be easily cleaned. They provided me with a quote for steam cleaning.

I got a quote also from another cleaner who had doubts about whether the stains on the driveway could be removed. He also didn't believe that steam cleaning would work. I also had another look at the area that Aqua Blast sprayed after it had dried thoroughly and it didn't seem to have had any effect. I informed them of this and said that I was rather sceptical that the driveway could be cleaned.

As I didn’t want to waste money on trying to clean the exposed aggregate if it's not going to work, I proposed to Aqua Blast that we pay them to come out and clean all of the tiled and paved areas, but to do a test clean only with their machine on a small part of the driveway, then if that worked I would proceed, but if it didn't I wouldn't, and there would be no charge for the test area ?

I asked them to separate out the two parts of their quote ? I thought my proposal would be a perfectly legitimate and fair solution.

They replied by “respectfully declining the offer to clean these surfaces”. They weren’t even interested in doing the tiled areas which were the largest part of the job by area. No explanation was given, although I suspect that their cleaning methods are not as successful as they claim, and they knew it They kept telling me how they valued their company’s success and credibility. Well, I think they’re shot to pieces now!

There are plenty of other pressure cleaning companies out there. Don’t bother with Aqua Blast. They only want to cherry pick the easy jobs to keep their reputation in tact.

I feel there is a need for all suppliers to be aware of the difficulties I have had in dealing with Booking.com, and to warn all operators that this company treats its suppliers with utter disdain.

It all started with an overbooking. Guests arrived for a 2 night stay and we knew nothing about them and we could not locate any booking email. Unfortunately we were full for the weekend and could not accommodate them. We therefore looked up alternative accommodation on Booking.com, so that it would still get its commission, and found another nearby property that had a vacancy, but at a slightly higher tariff. It also provided breakfast which we don’t as we are a self-catering property. The guest agreed to the accommodation and price and so I rang and personally spoke to a Booking.com operator who agreed after consulting the guest to transfer the booking to the other property. The guests were satisfied, and left to go to the other accommodation.

Booking.com then had the hide to try and charge me commission, despite putting through the new booking to the other property and charging them commission as well. I lodged a strong complaint about double dipping and they finally reversed the charge to me.

The next thing is I received an invoice from Booking.com for the $55 extra tariff that the guest had to pay, despite the fact that they had agreed to pay it.

If we were to be charged the extra $55 then the operator should have clearly told us so at the time. In such a case I would have booked cheaper alternative accommodation elsewhere. I’m not in the business of shelling out $55 for nothing ! I don’t know why they have taken this stance, as they earned extra commission on this booking because the tariff, agreed to by the guest, was $55 more than they would have otherwise got. I have refused to pay their invoice.

Not long thereafter we received a 4 night booking email from Booking.com for a guest to arrive the same day on behalf of an Italian Travel Agent with no individual name specified. We thought this was a bit strange, but as these are confirmed bookings, and came via an official Booking.com email, we had to accept it. The email provided AMEX credit card details for payment, however as we don’t accept AMEX we tried contacting the guest for an alternative credit card. The phone number given and the email address did not work. I then looked up this company on the Internet and could find no reference to it, and the address that was provided did not exist.

We were full for the first two nights of this booking and felt that we couldn’t just cancel it, as the guest may well just turn up. In the meantime we turned away two other inquiries for the first two nights of this booking in the same unit. It became more obvious that this might be a fake booking. Naturally, by the end of the night, no-one turned up and we had no option but to cancel the booking. Unfortunately in the meantime we had lost the opportunity, and income, to book the unit to someone else. We notified Booking.com and lodged a complaint about the fake booking.

After I had warned other operators in my local area, I received a phone call from another property advising that they had just received three fake bookings !

One of the first suggestions that I made to Booking.com was that they should have performed a simple credit card test at the time of making a booking. Booking.com asks suppliers to list what credit cards they accept on it’s website, but then they just allow the guest to enter details of a card that is not actually accepted. In this case, had the guest not been able to make a booking using AMEX, the fraudulent booking may not have come through and we would not have lost the income that we did. Of course the credit details would have most likely been fake as well, or it was a stolen card, however Booking.com does no credit card checks.

So what did Booking.com do ? They issued me with a termination notice for daring to criticise their procedures and making suggestions for improvement ! Their only argument was that their terms and conditions state that every property must accept AMEX credit cards. I felt they had no right to demand that properties take a specific type of credit card. I wondered whether they were getting some sort of kick-back from AMEX.

I therefore decided to do a bit of investigation and found that, of the 140 properties listed on Booking.com in my local area alone, 67 (or 48%) do not accept AMEX credit cards ! No doubt this statistic could easily translate to all other properties in Australia, let alone the world. It was impossible for me to agree to Booking.com’s contract conditions in the circumstances. So if they were going to terminate my listing because I didn’t take AMEX, then they should do likewise for every other property in the world that also doesn’t accept AMEX.

In any case they obviously allow properties to transact without AMEX as evidenced by the banner on the booking page for my property warning guests that this type of credit card is not accepted, and the fact that their Extranet requires properties to indicate which credit cards they do accept and which they do not. In any case the warning would have little influence on hackers. A simple test at the time of a guest booking would easily solve this issue. Instead suppliers have to go the trouble of trying to contact a guest to get another credit card. Why they can’t see that is simply beyond me. They steadfastly refused to change their process.

One of their junior employees in Australia then advised me that this particular booking was legitimate and they had other bookings from this same “Travel Agency”, even though he had done no checks of his own to see if it was in fact a real company/travel agent !

There is obviously a problem with Booking.com’s business model. As they don’t take any funds from the guest, all the risk is on the supplier.

After further representations from me they eventually reinstated my property.

When they continued to chase me over the unpaid $55 invoice for the overbooking, I decided that, as I had lost money on the fraudulent booking, I would invoice them to recover my costs. I therefore sent them an invoice for the same amount of $55 which was just a token amount of compensation for the 2 nights lost income that I could have received had I not kept the reservation for the fraudulent booking. Needless to say they have ignored this invoice which is now accruing interest on a monthly basis.

Of course the sensible thing to do would be for both of us to cancel our $55 invoices and call it quits in the interest of good customer service. But that’s a bit too much for a company like Booking.com. They have now suspended me again for non payment of their $55 invoice, whilst at the same time ignoring my own invoice!

Stupidity reigns supreme at Booking.com !