Avoid Musement at all costs!

That sounds like the same business model Viator uses, so avoid them as well. If you can figure out the provider it's much better to book directly with them. Cheaper for them as well.

Where were your tours?

I did do a quick search on the forum (gray search box at the top) and see there have been a couple of threads on this company. It was not familiar to me but the other threads were about using it in Spain.

Glad you've found this forum and certainly well worth a quick search next time you are tempted to sign up with a 3rd party provider.

Welcome aboard the Forums - I see this is your first post.

Where were these tours? I haven't heard about that company before - how did you find them?

My tours were in Verona and Venice, Italy. I think the company must be based in Spain because when I have received calls back from customer service, they have been from Spain. If I recall, I found the company by doing an internet search. I live in Italy, so it may be that they show up here in searches more than in the US or UK.

I agree that it is better to use local providers, but I have found that they are difficult to locate. Unfortunately, internet searches tend to bring up Viator/TripAdvisor and similar tour brokers. Once I find a tour company that I like, I get their information and book through them directly the next time. I'm glad I found this forum as it seems to have lots of information about good guides and I will contribute my good experiences as well!

Tips for finding independent operators of tours:

1. Viator very, very quietly started posting the operator of a tour on the description page, but you have to know where to look. Take this Potsdam tour, for example. Scroll down to "Additional Info," click on it, and look at the last line of the Additional Info section. There you will find the name of the operator, so you can go search the operator's site.

2. I have had great success with asking the owners of my hotel/B&B for a recommendation on a local tour company prior to my stay. I will add the caveat that I tend to stay at small family-owned places. I'm not sure how that works if you stay at larger hotels.

3. Use the search bar above on this website for forum member's experiences/recommendations.

I decided to look at the Musement website. It names the operator of the tour, too. Same Potsdam tour used in the example above. Scroll to the bottom of the listing, and the tour operator is listed under "Provider."

Thanks, Dave! That is very helpful information!!

That sounds like the same business model Viator uses, so avoid them as well.

I wholeheartedly disagree. I have had nothing but success in using Viator almost a dozen times. I know their business model. It is just like Booking.com that we all refer people towards. In the OP statement, they contacted the tour provider directly and they offered no assistance. They were told to go to Musement. If the tour provider was any kind of reputable tour operator they would have helped the OP in some fashion.

There seems to be this sense that tour operators are being taken advantage of by Viator or Musement or other third parties. I don't buy that for a moment. They know what they are getting into when they sign up, just like mom and pop hotels know the commissions on Booking.com and owners know when they attach themselves to VRBO and Air BnB there are rules and fees.

I avoid using booking.com to book my hotels/inns. Many of the properties will practically beg customers to book directly with the property otherwise, booking gets to take a cut. Likewise with Viator. I book directly with the person performing the service.

I do everything I can to book direct for lodging, guides, etc. The price is usually cheaper for me. Even if it is not cheaper, I like for my money to go to a local owner/guide instead of a big corporation.

I have mixed feelings about providers like Viator and Booking.com. On the one hand, I also prefer that my money go directly to local businesses. I have heard from several tour providers that they feel they have no choice but to accept the terms offered by the big companies and work with them not out of choice, but necessity. On the other hand, I appreciate the convenience of seeing many options all at a single place. This makes it easier to compare prices and services offered. However, if I book through one of the big companies and there is a problem, I expect that they will resolve it for me as my agent.

Ikey, well stated. I agree, particularly about the smaller tour companies feeling they have little choice but to work with the big consolidators. (And thanks for adding a location. It really helps!)

I am on Trip Advisor a lot and see many issues come up with Viator bookings. Most of the people on the forum I frequent most book directly with the provider so the one complaint there was that Viator indicated a tour was in the local area when it was actually a couple of hundred miles away. When the customer finally realized it they tried to cancel and were stonewalled by Viator even though the company mis-represented the location. Meanwhile the TA Support forum is littered with complaints about Viator.

I'm very glad the folks here who have used them have had good luck. I did a search and there are a few complaint threads but obviously well over 2-years old.

I expect that they will resolve it for me as my agent.

but that's the problem. They look like an agent but aren't. No fiduciary responsibility to either side.

They are simply a very well marketed, very well capitalized market stall - with no physical assets and no loyalty. You buy a carpet from them and it is your carpet no matter what flaws it has.

I agree with both the supporters and detractors of businesses like booking.com, Viator, and their ilk. We should probably include Airbnb, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Priceline, Rentalcars.com, kayak, momondo, Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, etc., etc. Any internet companies that aggregate services provided by others offer benefits to both the providers and the consumers. But there are a lot of caveats.

I like to support the businesses I engage with directly rather than going through a third-party aggregator. But these aggregators help providers publicize their services and help consumers do comparison shopping. There services can be invaluable. I'm guessing most of us who travel independently use them at least to do research, even if we ultimately do not book with them.

Ethical aggregators vet the providers who are allowed to list with them. If there are frequent complaints or low ratings for a provider, they delist them. And they offer customer support when there is a problem. We need to read the fine print when dealing with them.

In my experience, Viator is one of the most ethical of these companies. I've booked with them several times and everything was as advertised. I've never had a complaint.

We should also keep in mind that some of the providers themselves are unethical. They fail to provide the service they advertise, and they don't handle complaints well. Booking directly from the provider is no guarantee that things will be handled well.

In the case of Musement that the OP wrote about, it seems the providers were bad, and Musement did not offer good customer service either. Booking directly with the providers, in these cases, would not have gone any better.

Good thread! There's a lot here all of us can learn from.