Vouchered!

Bed & Breakfast / Short Term Rental Host Forum

Help Support Bed & Breakfast / Short Term Rental Host Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Generic

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 24, 2011
Messages
7,728
Reaction score
281
Last night we had one arrival for 8:30 PM, so we gave them the self check-in information and went out to see a movie. We come home to this note....
Good Evening,
Our name is ______ & _______, we had made a reservation for three nights for two rooms for three adults. We are waiting from 6 until 9 o'clock. We are now looking for a hotel and we'll be back tomorrow in the morning.
Our neighbour who runs another B&B called, but he called on our personal number and left a message. The mobile is the B&B number and that was in my pocket on vibrate all night, no calls. One of the guests apparently let them in and they waited on the staircase for us. Nothing I can do about it, so I spoke to the guests this morning and asked that they don't let anyone else in.
Well, this morning ______ & ______ show up at the door. I tell them that I most certainly don't have a reservation for them. Certain, I can't... it says two rooms with private bath... I have only one with private bath. So they pull out a hotel voucher to show me. It is, in fact, made out in our name, with those dates, etc. But I don't have any such reservation... everyone else is checked in. I have some check ins today, but not in that name. And I don't take vounchers! I called the phone number listed in the voucher, but it's in Vancouver, so it's only 6AM there. I left a message. I told them that if they have a chance, to walk by in the afternoon and maybe I have heard something.
I'm still trying to figure out if this is a new type of scam or just a mix-up. Maybe the company booked the wrong place? The wrong B&B? I feel badly for these people, but it's definitely not of my doing. Anyone ever have this occur to them? Anyone actually take voucher reservations?
 
Wow that is scary. Sounds like a scam to me - they prepaid all this???
RIki
 
I had that here while on vacation once, angry voicemails, we are standing at the front door, we have a reservation! (Uh no you don't) and it was from some stupid website that LIFTED OUR INFO and then provided a BOOK HERE button, to which these people gave them their credit card #'s and paid for it. I had no way of ever contacting them, but due to the vigilant assistance of the forum was able to determine that much. They did not have a reservation with us, but were scammed.
Could this be similar?
This is when I remind everyone to GOOGLE your inn name and find those bad-boys out there who lift your information and act as if they represent YOUR INN! Another innmate had this happen, an entirely false website created from their website, a scam.
Sad for those guests.
I am still on this one, just googled, here is the image they have of us, just lovely isn't it.
a-h-21449-ds-1.gif
 
OMG! How horrible! Have you ever heard of the company that issued that voucher?? Please let us know what you find out.
 
My scam radar is going off I'd have asked them if you could copy the stuff as evidence. Mind you we had a situation where a woman rang me not rude but nearly in tears because she had booked us (she hadn't actually but this came out later) and we had taken the money for the whole stay without telling her and cleared out her account. I said then you definately havn't booked with us because I havn't charged any cards today. Turned out she had booked with my neighbour (had looked at a lot of places and had been confused dread to think what would have happened when she had actually arrived) after quite a bit of faffing about we got to the bottom of this (Alvera sounds so like Camberley don't you think?) but frankly proves my point about guests. Told off some guests of another neighbour for something similar the other day. - She needed a digital photo of her place for something but her computer had gone mad and she couldn't send one in and there was a deadline for an add. So I said I would pop round and take one and email it in for her. Got to her front door and there were 2 guests comming out "is Tabs in?" im sure she is they said and started walking off. I said arnt you going to lock the door? oh but your her friend - I said you don't know me - please lock the door because if she isn't there then you are leaving it open for anyone and if she is there when I ring the bell she will come and answer it. (she has a huge sign inside the door saying LOCK THE DOOR) I would also point out that she wasn't there so would have been open for hours till she got back from cooking the kids tea. grrrr
 
I only had one instance of someone emailing me to say that they had reserved through some third party booking company (we weren't listed on any!) and she had not received a confirmation from me. I emailed her back that everything was handled directly through the inn and we did NOT use any third party booking agencies whatsoever. I never heard back...
Sorry this happened to you. I wonder if those "guests" were scammed or if they were trying to scam you? Wierd...
 
I only had one instance of someone emailing me to say that they had reserved through some third party booking company (we weren't listed on any!) and she had not received a confirmation from me. I emailed her back that everything was handled directly through the inn and we did NOT use any third party booking agencies whatsoever. I never heard back...
Sorry this happened to you. I wonder if those "guests" were scammed or if they were trying to scam you? Wierd....
Samster said:
I only had one instance of someone emailing me to say that they had reserved through some third party booking company (we weren't listed on any!) and she had not received a confirmation from me. I emailed her back that everything was handled directly through the inn and we did NOT use any third party booking agencies whatsoever. I never heard back...
Sorry this happened to you. I wonder if those "guests" were scammed or if they were trying to scam you? Wierd...
...and always nice that other guests, NOT the innkeepers just let them in. I would really be ticked off at those guests, esp in a city setting!
Another reason, we always talk about free website/listings not always being free. There are so many that are just not good, there is no way to update them all, many are just listing your info and you cannot change anything. BTW Nothing against Pillows and Pancakes, but when he came to this forum he allowed us all a free basic listing. I went there and found the rates (of course) all out of wack, as it was like 4 or 5 years ago. Why? I never think to update free listings. Out of sight out of mind.
 
Well, we got this straightened up. Got a call from the left coast just before noon. Apparently they claim it was a clerical error that they got the voucher in our name, it was supposed to be another B&B in town. So I told them where those guests were and to go do what they need to do and that we did not appreciate it.
I checked up on that other B&B, it's about 3 km away from here, but not really an area that a tourist would really want to be in. It says 10 min to downtown by metro... which is a blatant lie... it's at least 15 minutes to the metro station itself, never mind downtown. he property does have 4 suns (we have 3 suns). But it also doesn't have two rooms with private bath, only one... but two rooms that share one bath, it has.
I wonder what the property owner negotiated for a rate that they are getting voucher people. The location really isn't great. It's a nice enough neighbourhood, but really not the tourist area at all.
 
Well, we got this straightened up. Got a call from the left coast just before noon. Apparently they claim it was a clerical error that they got the voucher in our name, it was supposed to be another B&B in town. So I told them where those guests were and to go do what they need to do and that we did not appreciate it.
I checked up on that other B&B, it's about 3 km away from here, but not really an area that a tourist would really want to be in. It says 10 min to downtown by metro... which is a blatant lie... it's at least 15 minutes to the metro station itself, never mind downtown. he property does have 4 suns (we have 3 suns). But it also doesn't have two rooms with private bath, only one... but two rooms that share one bath, it has.
I wonder what the property owner negotiated for a rate that they are getting voucher people. The location really isn't great. It's a nice enough neighbourhood, but really not the tourist area at all..
Very odd that they would have put your business name on the voucher. How would they even know your name if it's not in their system?
I'm glad you got it straightened out and it wasn't a matter of some scamming you or the guests!
 
Well, we got this straightened up. Got a call from the left coast just before noon. Apparently they claim it was a clerical error that they got the voucher in our name, it was supposed to be another B&B in town. So I told them where those guests were and to go do what they need to do and that we did not appreciate it.
I checked up on that other B&B, it's about 3 km away from here, but not really an area that a tourist would really want to be in. It says 10 min to downtown by metro... which is a blatant lie... it's at least 15 minutes to the metro station itself, never mind downtown. he property does have 4 suns (we have 3 suns). But it also doesn't have two rooms with private bath, only one... but two rooms that share one bath, it has.
I wonder what the property owner negotiated for a rate that they are getting voucher people. The location really isn't great. It's a nice enough neighbourhood, but really not the tourist area at all..
Very odd that they would have put your business name on the voucher. How would they even know your name if it's not in their system?
I'm glad you got it straightened out and it wasn't a matter of some scamming you or the guests!
.
I'm glad as well... though doubtful of the "clerical error".
Of course, I don't know what happened to the guests, it wasn't my responsibility to take care of them. Hopefully they aren't out the night at the hotel.
 
Well, we got this straightened up. Got a call from the left coast just before noon. Apparently they claim it was a clerical error that they got the voucher in our name, it was supposed to be another B&B in town. So I told them where those guests were and to go do what they need to do and that we did not appreciate it.
I checked up on that other B&B, it's about 3 km away from here, but not really an area that a tourist would really want to be in. It says 10 min to downtown by metro... which is a blatant lie... it's at least 15 minutes to the metro station itself, never mind downtown. he property does have 4 suns (we have 3 suns). But it also doesn't have two rooms with private bath, only one... but two rooms that share one bath, it has.
I wonder what the property owner negotiated for a rate that they are getting voucher people. The location really isn't great. It's a nice enough neighbourhood, but really not the tourist area at all..
Very odd that they would have put your business name on the voucher. How would they even know your name if it's not in their system?
I'm glad you got it straightened out and it wasn't a matter of some scamming you or the guests!
.
I'm glad as well... though doubtful of the "clerical error".
Of course, I don't know what happened to the guests, it wasn't my responsibility to take care of them. Hopefully they aren't out the night at the hotel.
.
Glad this got straightened out for you too! Yeesch, there's always something, isn't there?
 
I had that here while on vacation once, angry voicemails, we are standing at the front door, we have a reservation! (Uh no you don't) and it was from some stupid website that LIFTED OUR INFO and then provided a BOOK HERE button, to which these people gave them their credit card #'s and paid for it. I had no way of ever contacting them, but due to the vigilant assistance of the forum was able to determine that much. They did not have a reservation with us, but were scammed.
Could this be similar?
This is when I remind everyone to GOOGLE your inn name and find those bad-boys out there who lift your information and act as if they represent YOUR INN! Another innmate had this happen, an entirely false website created from their website, a scam.
Sad for those guests.
I am still on this one, just googled, here is the image they have of us, just lovely isn't it.
a-h-21449-ds-1.gif
.
Wow...thanks for the heads up!!
 
Back
Top