Anyone seen anything like this before?

Ok so today I booked a hotel near Gatwick Airport, UK. And I wanted to book this little B&B called Little Foxes. So I didnt want to book with an OTA, I didnt want them to take a 15% cut right, we all do that right? Anyways... I type into Google "Little Foxes Gatwick Hotel" And I skip the google ads and click the first link, and then I noticed that I wasnt on their homepage, altho I swear I clicked on the hotel website link.... Heres What I saw (I cant find a way to show picture inline, please look at attacjments) The top address that looks like the hotel website in fact redirects to another website... Which looks 90% like it could be the real hotels website. Confusing right? Illegal?

why not just book directly from their site http://www.littlefoxeshotel.com - looks like they are listed on lots of booking sites, their choice. but you can book directly from their site.

seashanty said:

why not just book directly from their site http://www.littlefoxeshotel.com - looks like they are listed on lots of booking sites, their choice. but you can book directly from their site..

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Yeah I did, I booked direct
What I was referring to was the .co.uk domain that looks like the properties website but it isnt, it redirects to some booking agent.
That is some sneaky stuff and if anyone did something like that to me I would get the lawyers onto them
I just noticed I posted the wrong picture attachment, its been fixed now

It looks to me like a question of owning the appropriate domain names. Little Foxes Hotel, being in the UK, should have purchased the .co.uk domain name as well as the .com domain. But because they didn't, somebody else did, and that somebody is using it to capture traffic from Little Foxes. Just owning the domain name is not fraudulent, that's just business, but the description that they are providing to google is deceptive, so that is fraud.
Anyone in business relying heavily on the internet needs to think carefully about their domain name, and all the possible suffixes, variants, mis-spellings, hyphenations, etc... that might make sense for them to control in addition to their main domain name.

maybe send them an email?
so harbor, how would the guest end up with a valid reservation? is it like they're trying to book through a place taking a commission and the other domain captures the info and takes the fee? this is very confusing to me.
i recall there was a site that would post listings without permission. i'd get a call saying someone was trying to book through some site that i was not enrolled in. i don't remember the name of it but it had all outdated info taken from my website. wrong rates, too.

seashanty said:

maybe send them an email?
so harbor, how would the guest end up with a valid reservation? is it like they're trying to book through a place taking a commission and the other domain captures the info and takes the fee? this is very confusing to me.
i recall there was a site that would post listings without permission. i'd get a call saying someone was trying to book through some site that i was not enrolled in. i don't remember the name of it but it had all outdated info taken from my website. wrong rates, too..

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Since the alternate domain, the littlefoxes .co.uk, was not bought by the Little Foxes Hotel, so another company -- Gatwick.uk.com -- saw an opportunity and bought the domain.
It is not clear, but it doesn't look like the Hotel and this Gatwick site actually have a business relationship -- rather they are trying to redirect people looking for the Little Foxes to another lodging business that they do have a relationship with, and/or they have an affiliate agreement (I am speculating here) with Booking, Laterooms, etc... -- in other words the OTA essentially gives a cut of their commission to affiliates who capture traffic looking for hotels, such that they end up booking through the OTA rather than directly.
So not only are there outfits out there (like Boo . c) that are buying google ads in your name to try to capture your traffic, it appears that there are outfits like Gatwick that are buying alternate website domains in order to try to capture your traffic.

seashanty said:

maybe send them an email?
so harbor, how would the guest end up with a valid reservation? is it like they're trying to book through a place taking a commission and the other domain captures the info and takes the fee? this is very confusing to me.
i recall there was a site that would post listings without permission. i'd get a call saying someone was trying to book through some site that i was not enrolled in. i don't remember the name of it but it had all outdated info taken from my website. wrong rates, too..

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I did, I sent them an email with the picture attached. the receptionist said she has forwarded it to management.
I was shocked when I saw this, seems you guys are too. I wonder if they can just claim back the domain with a letter to the domain authority. If I find out more I will let you know what happened.

Evan from Buuqit said:

seashanty said:

maybe send them an email?
so harbor, how would the guest end up with a valid reservation? is it like they're trying to book through a place taking a commission and the other domain captures the info and takes the fee? this is very confusing to me.
i recall there was a site that would post listings without permission. i'd get a call saying someone was trying to book through some site that i was not enrolled in. i don't remember the name of it but it had all outdated info taken from my website. wrong rates, too..

Click to expand...

I did, I sent them an email with the picture attached. the receptionist said she has forwarded it to management.
I was shocked when I saw this, seems you guys are too. I wonder if they can just claim back the domain with a letter to the domain authority. If I find out more I will let you know what happened.
.

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Evan from Buuqit said:

I did, I sent them an email with the picture attached. the receptionist said she has forwarded it to management.
I was shocked when I saw this, seems you guys are too. I wonder if they can just claim back the domain with a letter to the domain authority. If I find out more I will let you know what happened.

Click to expand...

They will have to buy it from the current owners unless THEY give up and let it lapse. A rail-trail group north of me missed a renewal date and the site was suddenly porn. That is why my site are on auto renew.