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Not getting paid for vcc from b.com

So we are trying to get payment from b.com for nearly 3 months now and keep getting fobbed off. We have had no luck with any of there departments and the so called financial department is to lazy ( can't be bothered to help ). There appears to have been problems with the vcc system since it started and yet at no time have us the so called partners been contacted about it or the program had the bugs fixed. The fact that they won't pay is actually FRAUD and who wants to be associated with criminals. Im wondering if a class action would get there attention and maybe wake them up to their financial obligations and expectations. At no time is a partner allowed to be late on their payment to b.com, so...... In the meantime the partners have to refinance so they can cary b.com though the year. I thought they worked for us by bringing customers to us and ensuring payment.

THIS IS CLEARLY NOT THE CASE. You should be ashamed of yourselfs. Please post here if interested in a class action as it seems the only way to get their attention. Extremely poor company and service


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Jo Roebuck 2 years ago

I have also been waiting since April for payment.   I pay bookin.com for payments.

I have messaged and it gets ignored plus have rung several times.

What is the solution???

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Grant Gabolinscy 2 years ago

Hi Jo I don't know but we are getting together a group for a class action. Despite repeated calls and emails b.com has repeatedly fobbed us off. We have just received a invoice from them despite being owed $6700. for past bookings and so far they have shown that they will pay lip service but little else.Please let us know if you would like to be apart of this action.

Regards

Grant & Deborah

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Jo Roebuck 2 years ago

Yes Thank you for your message and I would like to bepart of your action group as I am getting nowhere with booking. com

Jo

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lagunasdepalma… 2 years ago

I would like to be involved with this. They owe me over $2,300USD. This company is a joke. 

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Grant Gabolinscy 2 years ago

Hi its to bad that b.com is treating the people who make them their money so poorly. We have been lied to over and over again about when we get paid its been over 2 months. once we have enough people then we can get something started 

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Julie Ann S. S… 2 years ago

Hi! Are you from the Phillipines? BDC also owes me some money for 2 months now. I wonder how many of us here in the Phil that havent received payout from this company? Can we file a law suit or a formal complaint here in the Phillippines? 

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Leticia Rodrigues 2 years ago

Hi can you contact me about this too. I have been trying to resolve this for 3 months now. No payment since June yet guests are still staying for their bookings. No replies and no money!

 

Do you advise to cancel all the bookings going forward? 

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Casita Mazo 2 years ago

YES and keep me informed.

 

iMessage and whatsapp and telegram:

 

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Niklas Bernstein 2 years ago

I have the same issue. 

Really dont know what to do. 
I run a B&B in Sweden and they are impossible to get a hold of. 

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Grant Gabolinscy 2 years ago

Hi Niklas we have had the same issue over and over and over again. Sent all the info though 3 times and still get the same run around. We have finally been contacted again about this issue but I'm not holding my breath. This issue has been around since the vcc started and they are well aware of it. I have a email from management to prove this. It is fraud

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Grant Gabolinscy 2 years ago

Hi Niklas I really don't know what to tell you as they have every excuse in the book for not paying and just repeatedly fob us off. They are committing fraud but dont seem to care. Being off shore I dont know if they can be prosecuted and I think they know it. just continue to message them 

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Sam Dingley 2 years ago

I am suffering the same fate, I am down 1000 euros and its making me so stressed. The idiots that answer the calls are like robotic that don't have a clue what your talking about and I totally lost it with them yesterday after about 30 phone calls in a week. after reading other peoples post I am now very worried I will never get my money. I am refusing to pay them any commission on anything until they give me MY money. This is certainly criminal activity?

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Boquete Apartments 2 years ago

"The idiots that answer the calls are like robotic that don't have a clue what you're talking about"

The same thing happens if you contact them via the extranet. You get only standard answers that don't resolve anything, and each time you respond to these messages, another robot answers with the same crap. You never deal with the same person and all give the same stupid answers.
I only got a slightly different answer when I asked if these names represented real persons or bots. Then they asked me to be respectful. ***!

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Sam Dingley 2 years ago

I am having been fighting with the thieves that are booking.com since the 24 July over 1008 euros they owe on a VCC they well and truly F..ked up. I have called more than 30 times sent countless messages only to be told its been escalated to the fianance dept???? some moron called me the other day and accused me of making the error and charging the card on the 28 such a lie! I am at my wits end, I have blocked all my commission payments to them they are not getting any money off of me. I have screamed and shouted at them to no avail, I am at a loss of what to do???

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Sylvia Loft 2 years ago

exatcly the same here, and the swedish customer service is alway " never online"

 

waiting since June for their payment

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Magdalena Mono… 2 years ago

I have the same problem. Run B'N'B in Sweden. Have you heard from them?

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P Jarrett 2 years ago

Ask booking.com to allow you to capture CVV codes (credit card numbers on the back).

Tell them you want to process payments yourself. 

Tell them you want to OPT OUT of payments by booking.com 

They will be reluctant to do this, as they like to be in control, however, once done, you can charge the customers card yourself (assuming you have a channel manager or secure payment method linked to your bank) and then all the money goes direct into your account.

Booking.com will then send you there commission statement at the end of the month, and bill you for the commission. 

This way, you get YOUR money straight away, rather than booking.com getting YOUR money and paying you late. 

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Magdalena Mono… 2 years ago

Hur har det gått för dig? Mina pengar saknas än. Har nu fakturerat bookingdotcom i Sverige.

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Andreas Persson 2 years ago

I reply I English so everyone can read.

After I sent invoice directly to Swedish office at BDC I got paid pretty fast.

I had clearly written on invoice what would happen if they didn't pay on time, I also phoned BDC and recorded the conversation, clearly told them I could see through their lie about account details they telling everyone.

Don't have your place open if you not get paid, I closed mine and registered it on Airbnb.

I opened it again after I got paid, but just for a test during this few days that is left before closing for the season. If they not pay it ontime I will never open Booking again....and not use it on my private travelling either.

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Jo Roebuck 2 years ago

I have now been paid for 1 of my properties for the month of June. Perhaps things are moving now in the right direction. 

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Pension Bergseeblick 2 years ago

How did you manage to get paid?  I am daily on the phone to my account manager who is not doing anything to help.  I am not allowed to speak to anyone else, they now owe me nearly 13,000 Euro - we are a small B&B hotel and cannot manage without this money.

On top of this they are threatening me to close the hotel out for bookings because I havent paid my commission!  And I also just had to send back the SEPA payment they took from my bank for the commission - despite promises that the commission invoices are on hold.

I have threatened that if guests arrive who have already paid booking.com, they will not be allowed to check in until they have paid us directly and they can get refunded by booking.com. Only thing is, thats not fair on the guest.

I am thinking of going to the media, its a complete joke and nothing is being done.  

so next step is solicitor - they have broken their own contract with no doubt and plenty of proof, and/or the media to tell the public how they treat their "partners".

Anybody got any ideas?

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Boquete Apartments 2 years ago

This is obviously fraudulent. Try to look for alternative ways to get clients asap. There are many other OTAs, although some of them are simply BDC outlets with another name. The best is to get a good website on your own with good SEO. It takes time and money but is certainly worth it saving you the dependency, commissions, and the trouble with this fraudulent behavior.

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Donyea Griffin 2 years ago

I have also been going thru the same thing, I actually had to cancel all the upcoming guest. Some of them agreed to cancel with booking and book and pay directly thru me. So that worked up, but it’s has been four months since taking my first guest with booking and I have yet to receive any payment.

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Sam Dingley 2 years ago

I do hope so, I hate booking.com with a vengeance 

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Grant Gabolinscy 2 years ago

Wow that's great news. We have had to take a line of credit to pay the mortgage due to there non payment

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Leticia Rodrigues 2 years ago

I still haven't but have informed them I am contacting the ombudsman about this and opening a court claim against them and I will be cancelling bookings with guests. 

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Grant Gabolinscy 2 years ago

We have just rang our MP for our area and Tourism MP so hopefully we will hear back from them shortly let us know if that gets you some sort of a response

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Leticia Rodrigues 2 years ago

Do let me know what happens, can you share the contact details for tourism one please. 

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Boquete Apartments 2 years ago

How do you cancel a booking if BDC does not let you?
I really would like to know because I had cases where I tried to cancel because the guests did not pay the deposit, but BDC insisted that the guest needed to accept the cancelation. Of course, a fraudulent booker will not do this.

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Leticia Rodrigues 2 years ago

Just received an email with unacceptable reply. Telling me to update My banking details. My banking details are correct and have been updated since May. Another lame excuse for not paying. 

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Boquete Apartments 2 years ago

Grant, I am not getting paid by BDC but directly by the clients. We are in Panama and BDC does not offer this service in our country. So, after reading your post, I am glad they don't.
But I have another problem because of BDC protecting a fraudulent client, gaslighting us, and denying our right to be compensated for a no-show.
Not sure if this could be part of your action. If so, I will gladly participate.
IMO, BDC furthers fraud and is acting against the interest of their "partners".
I have asked BDC for the compensation that they denied me to get from a fraudulent client and simply reduce their next commission bill by this amount.  If they throw us out, so be it. I have had too many nuisances with this company already. They do nothing to protect us against fraudulent clients and force us to maintain reservations from people who are unwilling to pay a deposit although it is obvious that these are no-shows in the making.
https://partner.booking.com/en-gb/community/guest-payments-finances/gue…

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Gro Cathrine Aasgrav 2 years ago

Hello. I'm having the same problem with VCC payments. The issue has been ongoing for the month of July for us, but it already concerns 18 bookings. 
I have repeatedly messaged and called them, but there seems to be no forward motion for our case, and we keep getting new guests paying with VCC every day. 

I keep getting brushed of with them saying my case has been forwarded to the financial department and too allow 24-48 hours for a response. 19 days later, no response has arrived. Since the 12th of july I have called their customer service twice a day, and I send at least one message a day with the new bookings i'm not able to charge. 

The overall impression is terrible customer service and treatment of their "partners". 
I have also filed a complaint against their customer service because of this. 

Let me know if i can contribute with anything! 

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Grant Gabolinscy 2 years ago

Hi Gro Cathrine they are a piece of work thats for sure. Ive heard every excuse from they and submitted the same info a dozen times now. they are counting on us giving up so they wont have to take action or pay out whats owed. They even charged us the commission on the booking they wont pay for. Extremely frustrating to deal with and customer service is exactly that a JOKE. Stay on them we will keep you all posted 

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Maria Appartments 2 years ago

Hello 

We also have the same problem with vcc 

We are also well interested to join the class action 

Keep in touch with any news

 

 

 

 

 

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Grant Gabolinscy 2 years ago

Hi Guys after 3 months and this post along with over 60hrs on the phone with b.com over their vcc, we have finally got 3/4 of what's owed and now they have said that they can't pay the rest because its over a year now. What they forgot was it wasnt over a year ( we were using it as a holiday fund and were drawing on it 11 months on) when we started with a email campaign. They also blocked us and wouldn't answer calls and left us on hold for over three hours hoping we would go away well surprise to you.There is a help tab on the b.com page  (far right corner) which we used and finally got though to a person in finance who helped finally.Being a offshore company it will be hard to prosecute them as they know they are out side the law and most countries won't proceed with action against foreign companies so they have us by the short and curlys.     Though it is bad policy we don't help any customers that ask for concessions if they have booked though b.com and they are fine with it once they speak to us and hear the reasons why. So b.com is slowly strangling itself but they know there is always more customers and will just cary on and accept collateral damage as part of their business plan.Our latest complaints have now reached our member of parliament so hopefully we can bring some sort of pressure too bare. We recommend that everyone stop using the vcc system and force them to change. B.com staff said they will then have to send though the credit card details. Wheater this results in fewer booking I dont know but it will be less of a head ache.    The real point is that you should be truthful with your so called partners and up hold the moral ground on which you preach, the reason that vcc is in use is to stop fraud obviously they didn't get that message.

How we proceed with legal action I'm not sure but are waiting to hear back from our MP to see how to proceed. Dont give up as that's what they are counting on.

Will post more as the info becomes available good luck guys my thoughts are with you all

 

 

 

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Shay Conway 2 years ago

my payment is late and the solution is simple - I won't accept further guests until I get paid

I have just notified the guest arriving today - not my problem

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Pension Bergseeblick 2 years ago

HI Shay, I am seriously considering this course of action too but for all future bookings made on "payments by booking.com".  

However, how did you explain to your guests?  Problem is for me, it is not the guests fault and that is the only thing that has stopped me so far.

Can you post later and tell us all how it went

Thanks

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Shay Conway 2 years ago

The thing is to push the problem back to Booking.com, move on to another supplier like Expedia or AirBnB. Hold on to deposits. Cancel booking.com direct debit mandate so they can’t fine you. No point in taking legal action it’s a big multinational. Sometimes you just have to take it on the chin and move on

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Boquete Apartments 2 years ago

Hi Pension Bergseeblick, you could contact the guests as soon as you receive the booking and tell them that BDC does not pay you and they can cancel the booking free of charge and book directly with you, offering them a discount or a free meal equivalent to about 50% of BDC's commission. This way both sides share the advantage, and you will have a guest that pays you directly and you don't add another loss from BDC.
Having cash flow is essential for us small businesses and if BDC does not respect your interests, they cannot expect you to respect theirs.
We don't have the VCC problem as BDC does not cash in from guests in Panama, so we are on our own and I am now very glad they did not offer it. But we had another problem recently when guests booked allegedly with the right to "cancel at any time free of charge", which is the exact opposite to what our policies state. These guests canceled the afternoon of their expected arrival without paying a cent and BDC does not want to compensate us. So, from now on, we will rigorously demand the BDC clients pay a deposit immediately, otherwise, we will cancel the booking regardless if BDC allows cancellations from our side or not. The word "partners" that BDC uses for us is a joke. You don't create partnerships like this.

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Shay Conway 2 years ago

Contacting the clients directly is a good strategy. Hold the rooms for them and get paid directly 

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Grant Gabolinscy 2 years ago

That is a great idea Boquete as we have received notice from b.com that they will not pay out on vcc over a year old even though they have been emailed repeatedly over a period of several months and never took action but have taken the money which for some reason they think is now there's and have refused to take any further action.My advice is to follow exactly what you have posted they need to be taken down a few steps and realise that its a two way street and start to respect there partners. I for 1 will take every possible action to recover whats owed with interest.

PARTNER is a joke and they dont care They are full of the ***

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Grant Gabolinscy 2 years ago

Also b.com does not have the right to tell their partners what their cancelation policies are, if they want to do that, then they need to buy alot of businesses and run them how they like

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Roberto Gonzalez 2 years ago

 I am waiting on payment myself on a guest that stayed in my house, and has departed, but no money was transferred to my account. Add me to your lawsuit list. I’ll be canceling all other guest thru bookings.com

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Seaforth Holid… 2 years ago

Im in they owe me close to $8000 in VCCs I cannot access 

.

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Shay Conway 2 years ago

Janey Mac - shows you have to pull the plug earlier. I’ve been paid but from reading this stuff I’m going to be very cautious 

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Frano Katić 2 years ago

For me the same . They owe me around 4000 Euros. I spoke with more then 30 booking com employees , they are not doing anything to pay me the money they owe . 

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Boquete Apartments 2 years ago

"I spoke with more than 30 booking com employees, they are not doing anything to pay me the money they owe"

Although we don't have the same problem as we here get paid directly from the guests, there is one big ugly truth that we have in common.

Booking has obviously a common policy for all problems: they have a huge number of incompetent call center agents who are neither trained nor enabled to solve problems. Their only task is to give irrelevant standard answers, hoping that either the partner resolves the problem alone or, where this is not possible, simply gives up in desperation.

It appears to be cheaper, at least in the mind of BDC's management, to go this path than to have a sufficient number of trained personal, dedicated to really solve problems.
I am experiencing exactly the same obstacle. I have received emails from more than a dozen of employees, all with vague, irrelevant, or otherwise useless answers, none of which did anything to resolve our problem.
I have now started to answer these useless messages very impolitely, hoping that this may wake somebody up if nothing else to finally get the attention of some supervisor who might elevate the case to somebody competent.

In the case of not paying VCCs, there is the added advantage for them that not resolving the problem might save them additional money ... if the partners don't take legal action. So it is probably the only solution for your problems to do exactly this. Not individual lawsuits which would be too costly, but a class action. And give this class action all the publicity you can.