[Nieuws] Hotel boeking sites veroordeeld in Frankrijk
Deze artikelen vond ik net in The Connexion (een Engelstalige krant in Frankrijk):
Citaat:
Expedia 'fined' for duping clients
INTERNET holiday site Expedia has been ordered to pay €427,000 to French hoteliers after being found guilty of a series of “false price reductions”, “false prices for hotels” and “false information on hotel availability”. The world’s No1 internet travel agency – which also includes travel advice site Tripadvisor.fr and hotel booking site hotels.com – was condemned by the Tribunal de Commerce de Paris for misleading customers and ordered to pay the money as damages. It must pay €305,000 to the hoteliers federation Synhorcat and the rest to two hotels which sparked the initial complaint: €79,000 to the Hôtel de la Place du Louvre in Paris and €43,000 to the Château Guilguiffin, in Landudec, Finistère.
Expedia was investigated by the anti-fraud agency DGCCRF who found that internet bargain-hunters had been misled by the American-based sites. Buyers were given information that certain hotels were full and were directed towards other hotels with whom Expedia and Hotels.com had commercial links. Tourism minister Frédéric Lefebvre, who launched the DGCCRF investigation in May, said: “Nearly 60% of French internet users exclusively use the web for preparing and buying their travel needs. The accuracy of the information provided by these sites is, therefore, vital.”
Synhorcat greeted the tribunal’s decision as a “victory for consumers and hotel professionals” and hoped it would lead to a new morality in the e-commerce sector. It also denounced the Expedia sites for their confusion of marketing tactics with Tripadvisor seeming to be an advice site while it was also directing bargain-hunters to its own sister companies. Synhorcat president Didier Chenet has called on the companies to meet to straighten out the situation and what he called “abuses” in contracts. If not, he said, the federation would again take Expedia to the tribunal.
Fraud probe into web hotel bookings
May 11, 2011
THREE internet hotel booking sites are to be investigated by fraud squad detectives after being accused of wilfully misleading customers on the availability, promotions and facilities of hotels. Tourism secretary Frédéric Lefebvre has called on the Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des fraudes (DGCCRF) to halt such practices on the sites Expedia, TripAdvisor and Hotels.com The three sites are owned by Expedia, a former Microsoft start-up, and Mr Lefebvre asked the DGCCRF to investigate them in January. He has accused them of conduct prejudicial to both consumer and hotelier. Investigators have said they have evidence of hotels being classed as “full” when they still had rooms, prices claimed to be promotional when they were normal rates, hotels classed above their real rating; four-star instead of three-star, and hotel phone numbers being inaccurate. They also had screen-grabs showing that after hotels were flagged as being “full” customers were being directed to another hotel which had a financial link with the internet site.
French hotels association Synhorcat has already started legal action against the three sites and Mr Lefebvre has linked the DGCCRF investigation to its court case. A hearing has been set at the Tribunal de Commerce de Paris for July 6. DGCCRF agents are continuing investigations into claims of false advice to travellers and the contracts between the sites and the hoteliers.
Dus altijd goed vergelijken!!! Ook rechtstreeks bij de hotels. De hotels die wij in het verleden geboekt hebben bleken meestal goedkoper dan de boekingsites.
