To make matters worse guests have learnt how to get around this and request refunds even when they are the ones making mistakes, such as booking another room than the one they wanted even if the pictures are clearly tagged to the rooms. Us hosts are ending up being held at ransom because the guests know they will get away with practically murder due to their right of leaving a review even if it is not realistic and blatantly wrong. Then Booking.com answer stating that they cannot remove a review because it is subjective when clearly an instance such as booking the wrong room when all pictures are correctly tagged is definitely not subjective but an objective mistake which the guest tries to put on the host requesting a full refund using the excuse that the “room does not match the listing” when it clwary does. Guests are becoming savvy and take advantage of these inadequate policies. The problem is that Booking does not realise that ultimately us hosts are the partners and if we leave they will have nothing to sell…at the end of the day we are not requesting something in our favour but a situation which should be fair and does not give the opportunity for the host to be blackmailed!
Totally in agreement, exact same thing happens to me as well, they close the ticket so that I cannot reply. I send 6 messages or so, all ignored or receiving a non-sense reply...then when you call and get some kind of help and ask for a name you are only provided with a first name which accounts for millions of people around the globe, asked for the full name and got the first name again so then I asked if it is just "First name" there is no last name and I got a reply in the affirmative. A total joke...and a rip-off 19% commission for doing nothing! Only good for marketing and getting bookings but when it comes to customer care (because in reality we are BDC's customers and not the guests...without us BDC would have nothing to sell) BDC is rubbish...other platforms charge much less commissions and their customer care is impeccable...I can see why, for example, Airbnb is rising...and if BDC are not careful of the way they treat customers they will fail no matter how big...Nokia was big as well...
To make matters worse guests have learnt how to get around this and request refunds even when they are the ones making mistakes, such as booking another room than the one they wanted even if the pictures are clearly tagged to the rooms. Us hosts are ending up being held at ransom because the guests know they will get away with practically murder due to their right of leaving a review even if it is not realistic and blatantly wrong. Then Booking.com answer stating that they cannot remove a review because it is subjective when clearly an instance such as booking the wrong room when all pictures are correctly tagged is definitely not subjective but an objective mistake which the guest tries to put on the host requesting a full refund using the excuse that the “room does not match the listing” when it clwary does. Guests are becoming savvy and take advantage of these inadequate policies. The problem is that Booking does not realise that ultimately us hosts are the partners and if we leave they will have nothing to sell…at the end of the day we are not requesting something in our favour but a situation which should be fair and does not give the opportunity for the host to be blackmailed!
Totally in agreement, exact same thing happens to me as well, they close the ticket so that I cannot reply. I send 6 messages or so, all ignored or receiving a non-sense reply...then when you call and get some kind of help and ask for a name you are only provided with a first name which accounts for millions of people around the globe, asked for the full name and got the first name again so then I asked if it is just "First name" there is no last name and I got a reply in the affirmative. A total joke...and a rip-off 19% commission for doing nothing! Only good for marketing and getting bookings but when it comes to customer care (because in reality we are BDC's customers and not the guests...without us BDC would have nothing to sell) BDC is rubbish...other platforms charge much less commissions and their customer care is impeccable...I can see why, for example, Airbnb is rising...and if BDC are not careful of the way they treat customers they will fail no matter how big...Nokia was big as well...