Cottages.com - Scam?

[WinkleHoff]

Hi All,

We had a house in Devon booked for a week, we made the booking in February, made the deposit, and they were due to automatically collect the balance today. This was conformed by them in a letter/email when we made the booking. Today they were due to take it.

My wife contacted the owner of the cottage today, who said that Cottages.com had cancelled the booking as we had not made the payment - which they cofirmed they would collect automatically. They have now relisted the property today for an additional £1000!

We've had no notification from Cottages.com, we found out from the owner.

This is scandalous. We have not had our deposit refunded either.

Any thoughts or help would be appreciated. This one week away we were really needing. My kids will be devestated.

[Bill]

I'd expect to have to make a payment rather than them just take the balance.

Have you contacted them?

[jonobigblind]

Given the balance was due to be collected today and all this has gone on...when did the cancellation actually take place?

[WinkleHoff]

We've had no cancellation notice, the owner himself said its been cancelled by them and relisted on their website. We can't contact them, call centre doesn't pick up. Twitter feed full of angry people on similar situation.

[Bill]

That doesn't sound good.

Has the cottage owner managed to talk to them? I'd start negotiating with the owner about having the week anyway.

[RammyMP]

I finally got hold of them after 2 hours on hold. I had a booking which they cancelled but wouldn’t give me a refund and told me to rebook for another time. I did and they charged me £40 re-booking fee. Bunch of s.

[WinkleHoff]

The property owner is miffed. Looking at the FB page and twitter owners are as fed up as customers. Are they going down?

They are part of the Awaze Group.

[RammyMP]

I don’t think they’re going under, I think they’ve just not managed things well, they’re understaffed and can’t cope with the amount of cancellations and amendments.

[WinkleHoff]

RammyMP said:

I don’t think they’re going under, I think they’ve just not managed things well, they’re understaffed and can’t cope with the amount of cancellations and amendments.

Thing is, we've not changed anything about our booking....

[BobSaunders]

Have you checked with the bank if they attempted to take the payment?

Sounds like they are chasing profits based on the current UK holiday demand.

[Driver101]

BobSaunders said:

Have you checked with the bank if they attempted to take the payment?

Sounds like they are chasing profits based on the current UK holiday demand.

I wouldn't be surprised if the owners knew what was going on too. They'll be pocketing extra cash as well.

Reading some of the reviews and it's the owners cancelling.

Edited by Driver101 on Tuesday 21st July 09:56

[Monkeylegend]

We had a booking with them for 4-11th July in Cornwall which we wanted to cancel for obvious reasons.

We had difficulty getting through on the phone initially due to covid so spoke to the owner direct to let her know we would be cancelling. She was a very nice lady but said she could not officially accept any cancellations or re bookings, everything had to go through the agent.

We did eventually get through and were offered the option of re booking without the admin fee or getting a full refund, which we did in fact take and receive withy no issues at all.

I don't think it will be a scam but you might need to hang on a while to get through. They are probably now very busy with a rush of bookings now the restrictions have been lifted.

[Holiday23]

Has anyone had dealings with cottages.com? We booked a break, my wife and I sat in bed and completed the booking. The dates were switched on us "we are allowed to shift your dates by three days Sir if you don't tick the box". There is no alert that dates have been shifted nothing put in writing. Confirmation was sent with THIER dates not OURS. We didn't check, we were delighted to be going on holiday. We were telephoned by the house owner confirming our booking because we had not confirmed (in our diary to do on Tuesday). Lesson, be very wary of their questionable modus operandi.
Talking to the property owner (charming) she has also suffered in her dealings with them.
I will never use them again and if anyone asks I'll tell them my experience, I'll tell everyone at the clubs and schools I work for.
Ultimately they will lose custom.