Reservation Counter review: Hotel booking

Be careful when you book a hotel through the website reservationcounter.com. They are a third-party hotel booking site. Their listing on the internet led me to believe that I was actually contacting the hotel, which was my intent all along. They deliberately make the booking experience misleading, so the customer thinks he/she is booking directly with the hotel. You won't find out until it's too late that you weren't dealing directly with the hotel.

The entire stay was immediately charged to my credit card without warning me that the reservation was non-refundable. The scam is to not communicate their non-refundable cancellation policy to the customer until the booking has been completed and the credit card charged.

I canceled within 20 minutes of realizing that I'd been scammed and even got an email from Reservationcounter acknowledging that I'd canceled. I called them but they pointed to their "cancellation policy" and said that the cancellation did not qualify for a refund.

Their entire fraudulent scheme is as follows:

(1) Trick the customer into believing that they are booking directly with the hotel.

(2) Make the customer complete the transaction for the full amount & a booking fee before revealing their true identity.

(3) Bury the cancellation policy in fine print.

(4) Refuse to refund when the customer cancels.