British Tourist Duped by Nonexistent Hotel on Thai Island

[webfact]

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

 

A British tourist, Glen Parke, has been ensnared in a huge hotel scam while on holiday in Thailand. Parke booked a 59-night stay at the apparent Lek Lek Residence on Koh Samui through Booking.com, paying £282 (around 13,000 baht).

 

On arrival, he found that the supposed one-bedroom house was in fact just a small roadside shop.

 

After this unpleasant surprise, Parke had to hastily arrange alternative accommodations, spending an enormous £3,044. However, due to high demand, Parke had to shift to a third hotel, costing him an additional £3,579.

 

Despite their initial promises, Booking.com drew out the reimbursement process leading to Parke's expenditures escalating to £7,000 in the first two nights alone.

 

After weeks of dispute, Parke finally received his refund after inquiries from media outlets. Booking.com expressed regret over the unfortunate incident, blaming procedural errors for the delay and ensuring measures for future prevention.

 

-- 2024-04-27

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[petermik]

13,000 baht for a 59 night stay....that should have raised a red flag from the start

[Nick Carter icp]

9 minutes ago, webfact said:

After this unpleasant surprise, Parke had to hastily arrange alternative accommodations, spending an enormous £3,044. However, due to high demand, Parke had to shift to a third hotel, costing him an additional £3,579.

 

 

   Are those hotel prices for the night or for the 59 days ?

That is extraordinarily expensive for one night , but quite reasonable for 59 days .

Why did he have to have hotels again ?

[Bday Prang]

So from £282 for 2 months   it ballooned to £7000 spent in the first 2 days ?.  what a load of rubbish,   (or the guy really is a simpleton)

[Bday Prang]

Why did he "hastily" have to immediately arrange accommodation for the entire 60 days?   anyway losing 13,000 baht is hardly news worthy

[Stocky]

34 minutes ago, webfact said:

After this unpleasant surprise, Parke had to hastily arrange alternative accommodations, spending an enormous £3,044. However, due to high demand, Parke had to shift to a third hotel, costing him an additional £3,579.

Those a Baht figures surely not GBP.

[Tropicalevo]

18 minutes ago, Stocky said:

Those a Baht figures surely not GBP.

Not for 59 days surely.

[Excogitator]

51 minutes ago, webfact said:

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

 

A British tourist, Glen Parke, has been ensnared in a huge hotel scam while on holiday in Thailand. Parke booked a 59-night stay at the apparent Lek Lek Residence on Koh Samui through Booking.com, paying £282 (around 13,000 baht).

 

On arrival, he found that the supposed one-bedroom house was in fact just a small roadside shop.

 

After this unpleasant surprise, Parke had to hastily arrange alternative accommodations, spending an enormous £3,044. However, due to high demand, Parke had to shift to a third hotel, costing him an additional £3,579.

 

Despite their initial promises, Booking.com drew out the reimbursement process leading to Parke's expenditures escalating to £7,000 in the first two nights alone.

 

After weeks of dispute, Parke finally received his refund after inquiries from media outlets. Booking.com expressed regret over the unfortunate incident, blaming procedural errors for the delay and ensuring measures for future prevention.

 

-- 2024-04-27

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Something strange about this whole story.

 

Sure, the booked accommodation (which was eventually refunded) was unsatisfactory, but nothing prevented this guy from booking a few nights in a cheapish hotel, rent a motorbike, and then shop around for a better deal while on-site..

[Tropicalevo]

56 minutes ago, petermik said:

13,000 baht for a 59 night stay....that should have raised a red flag from the start

 

Why?

I rent a couple of one bedroom Thai houses for 3,000 baht a month each. Price went up this year from 2,500 baht per month.

Personally I would not want to live in one but staff are quite happy to stay there.

 

1 hour ago, webfact said:

the supposed one-bedroom house

 

 

[Nick Carter icp]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

On arrival, he found that the supposed one-bedroom house was in fact just a small roadside shop.

 

   The booking.com has photos of the accommodation , this photo of from the booking.com website , so its not actually a roadside shop , its accommodation which is above a shop .  

 

 

 

   It also has rooms going for 1000 Baht a night , which is about 25 Pounds .

Seems like Parke booked the room online and wanted something  bit better when he arrived and moved to somewhere better .

   The Hotel does exist  .

 

 

https://www.booking.com/hotel/th/lek-lek-samui.th.html?aid=356980&label=gog235jc-1DCAso3QFCDWxlay1sZWstc2FtdWlIJlgDaN0BiAEBmAEmuAEXyAEM2AED6AEB-AECiAIBqAIDuALl7rGxBsACAdICJDc3NjgyYzkwLTcyZTYtNGEwMi05YTU2LWE4ZjFjYmY1MzVjY9gCBOACAQ&sid=378ad98741c2d5a294c79b531743be18&all_sr_blocks=1053399302_386936275_2_0_0;checkin=2024-06-12;checkout=2024-06-13;dest_id=900040609;dest_type=city;dist=0;group_adults=2;group_children=0;hapos=1;highlighted_blocks=1053399302_386936275_2_0_0;hpos=1;matching_block_id=1053399302_386936275_2_0_0;no_rooms=1;req_adults=2;req_children=0;room1=A%2CA;sb_price_type=total;sr_order=popularity;sr_pri_blocks=1053399302_386936275_2_0_0__100000;srepoch=1714190840;srpvid=17d61bcaa78200d4;type=total;ucfs=1&#hotelTmpl

 

[Upnotover]

It's still on Booking dot com and a simple search would have shown him where he was going before he got "ensnared".

[petermik]

7 minutes ago, Tropicalevo said:

 

Why?

I rent a couple of one bedroom Thai houses for 3,000 baht a month each. Price went up this year from 2,500 baht per month.

Personally I would not want to live in one but staff are quite happy to stay there.

 

 

 

There are village houses nearby to me going for 1,000 baht per month...but we are not talking about village houses it`s about a Holiday Rental in a Tourist Island......

[Tropicalevo]

2 minutes ago, petermik said:

There are village houses nearby to me going for 1,000 baht per month...but we are not talking about village houses it`s about a Holiday Rental in a Tourist Island......

Err - I live on that tourist island.

That is where the houses are. Anyone can rent and do rent those houses. There are cheaper ones but I picked these two because they are near where we work.

As I said, not my cup of tea and the backpackers would be put off because there is no wifi. One has a/c and one is fan only.

[Nick Carter icp]

Seems like Glen Parke booked a 59 day stay at Lek Lek residence for  13 000 Baht, then moved to a more expensive hotel costing 120 000 Baht and he wanted booking.com to cover the difference between 13 000 and 120 000 Baht .

Seems like Glen wants a free holiday 

 

    Here's more to the story , 

 

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/left-7k-debt-finding-hotel-083125421.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANnn_nkOtmgFq9-JQyc7JIfcdjnYan8S96H79pk3dBFE2Mnocy2t_fEGow9YJdSAashdd2_6u19heAlUfOi2LEwAWldwoUdQi3aTvQqRXH40XiOK7Y6kDgngt_taoLzCL68mAr9KDgVh1ycuzn_L1toqjFUrq0BS7hOLS6GV1lr8

 

 

 

[brianthainess]

220 baht a night ? what was he expecting ? so he could have stayed there but chose not to.

1 hour ago, webfact said:

After this unpleasant surprise, Parke had to hastily arrange alternative accommodations, spending an enormous £3,044. However, due to high demand, Parke had to shift to a third hotel, costing him an additional £3,579.

 

 

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Parke booked a 59-night stay at the apparent Lek Lek Residence on Koh Samui through Booking.com, paying £282 (around 13,000 baht).

 

[1happykamper]

59 nights for only 13k. That's a big red flag. Then upgraded I guess and spent nearly 7 thousand quid! 🤔🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

 

[IamNoone88]

The figures quoted in this article makes no sense. In fact the whole article is frankly ridiculous.

[BusNo8]

1 hour ago, petermik said:

13,000 baht for a 59 night stay....that should have raised a red flag from the start

 

It's seems ok price for what he booked.

 

I'm wondering what constitutes the fraud? Were there photos of some snazzy hotel/resort?

I've found booking pretty good to deal with aftermath of dubious accomodations

[wensiensheng]

1 hour ago, petermik said:

13,000 baht for a 59 night stay....that should have raised a red flag from the start

7,000 quid for two nights. Not credible. The whole thing makes no sense.

[wensiensheng]

6 minutes ago, 1happykamper said:

59 nights for only 13k. That's a big red flag. Then upgraded I guess and spent nearly 7 thousand quid! 🤔🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

 

For two nights!!

[Nick Carter icp]

2 minutes ago, wensiensheng said:

7,000 quid for two nights. Not credible. The whole thing makes no sense.

 

   It could mean that he spent 7000 quid in two days booking 60 days accommodation 

[Nick Carter icp]

8 minutes ago, BusNo8 said:

 

It's seems ok price for what he booked.

 

I'm wondering what constitutes the fraud? Were there photos of some snazzy hotel/resort?

I've found booking pretty good to deal with aftermath of dubious accomodations

 

   Seems like he was complaining because it wasn't a hotel  as advertised and it was just rooms available .

   

[garzhe]

I first thought this was some sort of scam but the accommodation exists on Booking.com so he must have seen what he was getting when he booked. At 13,000 baht for 59 days that's 229 baht per night or $6.20 or 4.95 GBP. You have to ask just what he was expecting for this price, 5 star hotel?

 

The booking.com website shows the cheapest room at 1000 baht per night. That would be 59,000 for 59  nights. Seems something wrong with this story. I can't believe they discounted it to 13,000 for a long stay.

Edited April 27 by garzhe

[brianthainess]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

After this unpleasant surprise, Parke had to hastily arrange alternative accommodations, spending an enormous £3,044. However, due to high demand, Parke had to shift to a third hotel, costing him an additional £3,579.

This story just gets more confusing the more times I read it.

Who in their right mind would pay 315,000 baht for 2 nights accommodation?

160k Baht a night is there actually any accommodation on Samui that would cost that or Anywhere in Thailand come to that. This sight just gets worse. 

[newbee2022]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

 

A British tourist, Glen Parke, has been ensnared in a huge hotel scam while on holiday in Thailand. Parke booked a 59-night stay at the apparent Lek Lek Residence on Koh Samui through Booking.com, paying £282 (around 13,000 baht).

 

On arrival, he found that the supposed one-bedroom house was in fact just a small roadside shop.

 

After this unpleasant surprise, Parke had to hastily arrange alternative accommodations, spending an enormous £3,044. However, due to high demand, Parke had to shift to a third hotel, costing him an additional £3,579.

 

Despite their initial promises, Booking.com drew out the reimbursement process leading to Parke's expenditures escalating to £7,000 in the first two nights alone.

 

After weeks of dispute, Parke finally received his refund after inquiries from media outlets. Booking.com expressed regret over the unfortunate incident, blaming procedural errors for the delay and ensuring measures for future prevention.

 

-- 2024-04-27

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And...? What is it about? The Brit got his money back and got adventurous holidays. 🤣

[NoDisplayName]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

On arrival, he found that the supposed one-bedroom house was in fact just a small roadside shop.

 

On arrival, he found that the the small hotel was exactly as described. 

 

Gosh, the photos in the booking.com site even showed the pharmacy on the street-level floor.

 

https://www.booking.com/hotel/th/lek-lek-samui.html?aid=304142&label=gen173nr-1FCAEoggI46AdIM1gEaN0BiAEBmAExuAEXyAEP2AEB6AEB-AECiAIBqAIDuAKIjbKxBsACAdICJDg1ZDQyYmJmLWJiOWYtNDEyZS1hZDMxLTYzODVmN2MxMTJhNdgCBeACAQ&sid=22daedac9b348c080a8b7e9da823b966&dist=0&group_adults=2&group_children=0&hapos=1&hpos=1&no_rooms=1&req_adults=2&req_children=0&room1=A%2CA&sb_price_type=total&sr_order=popularity&srepoch=1714194103&srpvid=587123558812008c&type=total&ucfs=1&activeTab=main

[arick]

Booking.com had huge problems with non-existent properties I thought they cleaned up their act but obviously not

[newnative]

Not believing a word of it.  And, no, this was not a 'huge hotel scam'.  Hold the hype.

[animatic]

17,000 + rental rooms

and this is the best he can do??

 

119,000 baht paid, twice, for long term rental??? And second rental takes all money and then says too much demand??? But holds on to money till forced to return???

Scams all about. Seems like Booking is not running too well. Or getting played by locals 

 

[brianthainess]

40 minutes ago, IamNoone88 said:

The figures quoted in this article makes no sense. In fact the whole article is frankly ridiculous.

Many articles here on AN are, before it was brought by Thaiger  at least we could blame the useless translations, but a Webfact it is not. Maybe a Danish translation by George..... 

Edited April 27 by brianthainess