Wikipedia: Controversy and criticism[edit]
Booking.com receives a steady stream of customer complaints and negative reviews. As of April 2017, its BBB profile [30] lists 657 customer complaints and 17 negative reviews, mostly citing poor service as well as advertising and billing issues. Many of the complaints are settled by the company by offering a customer refund, but no reimbursement is provided for shuttered plans and major inconvenience to customers.
In September 2012, the United Kingdom's competition authority, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), issued a statement of objections against Booking.com, its direct competitor Expedia and the hotel chain IHG.[31] The OFT alleged that Booking.com and Expedia had entered into separate arrangements with IHG which restricted the online travel agent's ability to discount the price of room only hotel accommodation. Booking.com, Expedia and IHG made a proposal to the OFT to change their restrictions. The OFT accepted the proposal but it was later rejected by a higher authority at a tribunal.[32]
In March 2014, Booking.com sent a request to Ukrainian and Crimean Hotels to clarify if they have connections to Viktor Yanukovych and 17 other Ukrainians, who the European Union had imposed sanctions upon. EU companies are prohibited from carrying out business with sanctioned individuals.[33] Booking.com’s behaviour aroused deprecation from its Russian competitors.[34]
At the beginning of November 2014, it was known that by accessing Booking.com reservations, criminals were able to obtain customer details through demands for prepayment. Booking.com said it was countering the fraudsters and refunding customers from the UK, US, France, Italy, the UAE and Portugal, all of which had been affected. Since the fraud, Booking.com has made changes so data can only be accessed from a computer linked to the hotel's server. Its teams have also worked to "take down" dozens of phishing sites, as well as working with some banks to freeze the money mule bank accounts.[35] In February 2015, an open letter published by German hotelier Marco Nussbaum, Co-founder and CEO of the budget-design hotelbrand "prizeotel", the brand hijacking of Booking.com met strong criticism. His letter outlined details relating to the Google Adwords policy of Booking.com was doing damage to his business. The letter was discussed in specialist media and led to a debate concerning current difficulties and challenges for online distribution within the hotel industry.[36]
In April 2015 French, Swedish and Italian competition authorities accepted a proposal by Booking.com to drop its "rate parity" clause and thereby allow competitor travel agents to offer lower hotel prices than Booking.com.[37] Booking.com further agreed to extend and apply its proposal across all EU states.[38] Hotels are still prevented from discounting prices directly on their own websites.[39]
Booking.com remains under investigation by competition authorities in the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Sweden and Switzerland.[40] The EU has warned that Booking.com and Tripadvisor may have reached market dominance beyond the point of no return.[41]
In March 2017, Turkish Court halted activities of Booking.com due to violation of Turkish competition law.[42]