Avoid chargebacks due to errors in guest email address
Wanted to share a problem I had with 2 reservations in the last month. In each case the guest accidently entered a incorrect email address. We send several message to the guest before the arrival date. A welcome letter / information and several notices regarding the charge to their credit card. These messages are sent through the fictitious email address assigned to the guest. Since these 2 guests made an error on their email address, all communication was not delivered. Resulting in no-shows and a charge backs. (unfortunately sales tax was already remitted to the city and state). Booking.com does not have in place programing to alert you of undelivered communications.
To avoid this happening to you. Please reach out to your guest if you receive no response to your communications prior to arrival. If you do not have a phone# for your guest, click on the tab "Report other Chargeback cases" (enter the pin sent to you) Up will pop the 'Dispute defense documentation'.
This document can be used in the case of a disputed chargeback. More importantly this document contains THE ACTUAL EMAIL ADDRESS for the guest. Now sent a email to the guest and see if it bounces back as undeliverable.
Very valid comment!
What we tend to do is send a welcome email and if we do not get any response we send a follow up and later a text/sms/whatsapp msg!
We then ask for a personal email to send an apartment guestbook as the portal mail does not handle attachments well! The booking.com email portal, unlike other engines, does not block email addresses!
I would have thought the email that the guest supplied BDC would have been verified when the account was set up. That's pretty slack by BDC.
Will ensure that a contact has been made with the booker in our future bookings.
Thanks
Regarding the chargebacks, did you win? 99.9% of the time if a custoemrs is a No Show, and you have all their details, you still wont be able to win a chargeback.
Visa and Mastercard have their own accommodation rules so anyone who ' Doesnt get what they paid for ' can process a chargeback and as the numebrs where keyed in, there is no way to win.
the booking.com chargeback dispute form doesnt work.
Booking.com chargeback dispute doesn’t work, I have just lost £356 even guests stayed for 6 nights at my hotel. A person who booked the accommodation for him allegedly reported to card company for fraud. He cancelled booking near to the end of the stay. Then claimed chargeback three months later. ( Lloyds Bank, card net) Hotel will have no chance against dishonest people.
We had all the details and corespondents from the Booker and guest but it didn’t protect us from fraudulent activities. Accommodation owners have to pay the cost for the chargebacks, our place is only small B&B and it left us with financial problems especially with the Covid situation.
Just going through the same. I had already settled the monthly accounts and paid the owner. Now I have to deal with a chargeback and it is driving me nuts the lack of help and attention you get. Apart from the 930€ cost plus cleaning, laundry etc we had already kept their damages deposit as they broke a brand new table, 10 bags of rubbish, tore curtains, left at 6am for the airport- lights on, aircon in, terrace doors left wide open. The nightmare clients from hell...and they say their card was used fraudulently ??♀️
Booking.com chargeback dispute letters don't work. All i do now is use virtual booking.com credit cards and put my prices up accordingly to cover the card fees when taking these virtual payments.
Least if a guest does do a chargeback its up to booking.com to follow it up as they took the payment.