Rome Hotel Scam Alert -just happened today!

In what way is this the fault of Booking.com? The way you tell it, he had your reservation but gave away your room for some reason, maybe you were late? Of course since you had prepaid he should not have done that but at least he gave you a full refund in cash. ( and since you paid 9 months ago and the euro has gone up you might have gotten a bit more than you paid).

If you wish to contact booking. Com it should be to complain about the hotel giving away your room. Booking.com had no control over that.

I agree with George. You got your money back but that is far from ideal.

I agree with Sasha, booking.com is not at fault here. I would still make a complaint so they know what happened but I would word it so that everyone knows booking.com held up their end of the bargain but the apartment owner did not. Booking.com has no way to make an owner live up to an agreement but they can certainly choose not to deal with them in the future. I would point this out to them and let them know how disappointed you are and the financial hardship it put you through to deal with this unscrupulous owner.

I would also post this alert, with apartment name and address, on as many travel forums as you can in order to get the word out to stay away from this apartment and owner.

Hope you had a great stay in Rome despite this set back.

Donna

Booking.com has the duty to provide a fair marketplace in exchange for their commission. In the same way that EBay must act to prevent fraud. Obviously they can't control every provider, but if they tolerate actions like this what traveler would use them? Flamini Domus obviously gave the room away to get more money from someone else, at the expense of this family. If Booking.com doesn't assist them, then they are complicit.

Although booking.com was not responsible for the actions of the unscrupulous owner, I believe they should be made aware of his behaviour and consider banning him from the site. I suspect the owner got a higher price from the people he eventually rented it to so of course he didn't mind making a full refund, since there was more money in his pocket.

The problem was the owner, not booking.com. They can't make owners keep their word. However, they will want to know about these problem so they can take appropriate actions against the owner. In this case, I can see from the booking.com page that they have frozen this guy's listing, so maybe they're already on this.
Flamini Domus on booking.com

And here's the TripAdvisor page where you can post your experience to warn other travelers. Depending on how hacked off you are, you can do a google search for flamini domus rome to see that he has pages on other listing sites, as most places do. You could put bad review on all of them.

Mike from Boston, I'm not sure what booking.com can do for this family since the owner gave them their money back. I agree that booking.com should not use this vendor anymore but to blame them for something they have no control of isn't fare. Let's wait to see how they handle this before we tar and feather them. Hopefully the OP will keep us informed of where she makes the complaints and how they are resolved.

Donna

Honestly, all of you are so caring. I appreciate your support. I sent a brief message to booking.com last night to alert them of problem. I tried to post a review on tripadvisor, but had a connection issue that could be related to a change in personal email address. At this time, I really just want to relax and enjoy Rome with my family. This is our first trip here and I will deal with the hotel "scam" when I return home next week. So far, everyone else in Rome has been so nice and helpful to us. I just want to alert travelers to this one hotel. Please don't get a negative view of Rome itself. Thank You!

I'm kind of unhappy at the support for Booking dot com. They can include all the disclaimers they want in their Terms and Conditions, but the fact is that their "name" puts a veneer of authority on an otherwise obscure B&B in Rome (or anywhere else.) To say that an Internet dot-com is merely an intermediary that has no responsibility to its customers is to describe a raw, hedge-fund like marketplace where only the fittest customers survive. If the "brand" has any value, they need to spend some of their profits to vet their listings.

That said, there are two sides to every story. I use TripAdvisor a lot, and most of the reviews for this property are favorable. It takes a close reading, checking the age of the reviews, and the low volume to get the idea that something may have changed in the last two years. But I don't see a lot of tell-tales that the reviews are fake. The lesson for me is that maybe five reviews in 2014 are not enough to choose a B&B.

Here's what is on the Booking.com site right now:

We're sorry, but it is currently not possible to make reservations for this hotel.. Click here to see nearby hotels

Flamini Domus Charming Suites

Looks like booking.com is looking into the issue and won't book anything for the hotel until it's resolved, if at all. I believe if they find out the hotel sold the room out from under Barb they may not deal with this owner anymore. Good for booking.com.

Donna

Out of curiosity, I looked this place up on TA by Googling it. The most recent three of four reviews are about similar issues and repeated credit card charges. I think it's reasonable to give those reviews a "like" to let the owner know people are paying attention. Doesn't mean you think you know the facts, but should mean the business should listen and maybe even post its explanation.

The owner has responded in English to earlier positive reviews...