I recently booked a vacation rental with this office. Initially I thought the process was entirely painless until I realized that they intentionally tried to rip me off. First let me give the 1 positive - the house we rented was exactly as pictured. I made a booking for 4 nights to rent a fairly pricey vacation rental ( about R3700 a day). We made the booking over the phone with some email discussion with their agent. I paid the deposit up front. Everything was fine and we checked in when the time came for the booking. I was in a rush when I paid the balance the second morning we arrived. I thought the balance was a bit high, but I assumed it was the security deposit. When I got back to the rental, I realized that I'd been billed for 5 days although we stayed only 4 nights. Our checkin was around 6/7 pm and checkout was at 8:30 am. I immediately understood this to be an error especially since they were scheduled to have another family to arrive on the day we left. When I went to talk to the agent she was pleasant but then told me that I received the invoice weeks ago and had agreed to pay 5 days for my 4 day booking. When I told her I'd never seen that invoice, we went through her email logs and found it. She sent me an invoice with no email title and no text - so I assume it went straight to a spam filter. Furthermore, I never responded acknowledging the invoice. As I indicated that they were charging me for something I didn't book and didn't want - her tone changed and she started telling me how exclusive the property was, how lucky I was to get a booking at all because they prefer 2 week bookings, and how nasty the landlord was despite his seemingly nice nature. She then proceeded to tell me she'd get in trouble with her boss if she credited the difference back.
I took this up with their corporate customer relations. They initially were apologetic - and said they would work on my refund. They attempted to recoup the extra they paid to the home owner. He refused to refund their money - so they turned around and refused to refund mine.
My only recourse is to share my experience with as many people as possible as well as to take this up with my credit card company. I don't know if this business is full of crooks or if they just have one bad agent - but I recommend that if you deal with them check your paperwork carefully. They seem not to understand that an error on their part isn't my responsibility - even if I caught their error late. Furthermore, if you can - deal with a more reputable company and always use a credit card. Do not give these people cash.
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