Lastminute

As many other descent customers have observed, I agree that lastminute.com is an example of a cowboy trader who employs unscrupulous tactics to hang on to any amount they could of their customers money. I encountered these on 6th February 2024, when I booked a hotel with lastminute.com at their website.

At the time of booking, it was stated in their terms that I can cancel before the 8th of February and get a full refund. The problem is, lastminute.com has made it so difficult to cancel in several ways. I crave your indulgence as I provide a bullet-point account of how they do so in ways that are deceitful, unethical. immoral and abusive to customers:

1.I went back within five hours of my booking to the same lastminute.com website to cancel.

The only contact provided on their site to reach them is this phone number - 0203 38* ***. They also said you can contact them through their virtual assistant. However, let me be categorically clear - there is no email contact, namely, customercare@***.com signposted on the site as they claimed in an email as the reason they will only part refund me. I therefore called this number to cancel my booking.

Behold, behold, I discovered the first lastminute.coms cowboy tactic! The phones recorded voice mail said it can only be used to make a new booking and not for queries from existing customers. The phone however suggests that I use their virtual assistant or go to my account settings or download their App to manage my booking.

2.Tactic no. 2 It strikes me as dubious that the lastminute.com phone can tell that I am not a new caller and cut me off.

This suggests that the phone has an algorithm that identifies my phone number as an existing customer or previous caller who has booked with them. I kept trying it multiple times for nearly two days to ensure I am within the 8th of February cancellation deadline, but kept getting the same message. It is only when I got advised from my local Citizens Advice that they suggested I withhold my number or use another phone. And guess what - it worked.

I finally got through and spoke with their agent called Anbu on the 8th of February. I explained to the agent (Anbu) about multiple attempts to contact them to cancel and expressing concern that this is unethical, cowboyish trading practice. He gave me their email address and a phone number to reach the cancellation team or whoever.

3.Tactic no. 3 - rewind back to the days before the 8th of February cancellation deadline.

Before I used the caller withhold function on my phone to finally speak to the agent, I also used the lastminute.com virtual assistant multiple times to cancel as stated in their site and as instructed by their recorded message. Again this was impossible to cancel as after chatting and going through a series of questions including providing my booking ID, phone number and email, the virtual assistant referred me again to the online site where I booked the hotel and to use my lastminute.com account and app. I found this, as with the suggestion of the agent and the recorded voice mail, to be another cowboy tactic to make it difficult to cancel and for them to retain part of mine and other customers money. Customers like me, and many more should not be compelled to set an account or download an app to cancel a booking when I never used either to make the booking in the first place.

It seems to me lastminute.com can allow a customer to book online without setting up an account or through an app but cannot allow them to cancel the very booking online. This is unethical, disingenuous and cowboy trading practice.

4.Tactic no. 4 - it is also cowboy trading practice that lastminute.com can email me to confirm my booking, but cannot allow me as a customer to contact them through that emails reply function. In particular, they do not provide an alternative email address either like customercare@***.com in the booking confirmation email to make it easier to cancel.

This would have been far easier and standard good practice.

5.Tactic no. 5 I finally got a phone call with an apology and followed by an email from the lastminute.com customer care team saying they will fully refund my payment. I thought thats the end of the matter. Then another rude shock that is so common in the cowboy trading play book an email from lastminute.com retracting that offer and now only offering part of the refund.

They are withholding the sum of circa £104.00 as penalty for late cancellation that lastminute.com have made it virtually impossible to do. Even more insulting and disingenuous is saying that I should have used the customercare@***.com email provided online on the booking site to cancel. As I already stated, this is a big lie. This email contact is not, repeat not on the online site.

The site only displays the phone number that only takes in new bookings.

All in all, it suggests, lastminute.com has manipulated the cancellation process to make it very difficult to cancel a booking within their stipulated time frame. Their cancellation process and practice are opaque and rigged against the customer to make it very difficult to cancel without incurring any penalty. Other decent companies provide transparent and easy to access pathways for customers to cancel a transaction rather than being forced to go through an app or to set up an account to do so. Setting an online account and app should be alternatives only, as many people are not internet or digital savvy like the elderly, infirmed and those with other disabilities.

Even the digital savvy should not be compelled to set up an account or download an app. If lastminute.com are ethical, customer friendly and helpful, they could have used the virtual assistant and their confirmation email as opportunities to provide their customers with a phone number or email address to make the cancellation easier.

I am therefore calling on all those lastminute.com customers who have been duped to join me in raising complaints with their MPs, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Consumer Protection, the National Trading Standards Board and other relevant regulatory authorities. Lets get lastminute.com to be investigated.

I am also copying Martin Lewis to help lastminute.com get the notoriety it deserves.

In addition, I think the ability of lastminute.coms phone to identify an existing or new caller is based on its ability to retain and use a previous callers or customers information needs investigating for data protection breaches. I am not sure or aware that as a customer, I gave lastminute.com informed consent to use my data in this way that is injurious to me.

My request for a change in my existing booking was rejected and I only received an email from their team a few minutes ago, despite having accepted the quotation 24 hours ago. And even this is after multiple harrowing chats with their customer service team this morning.

I had made it clear to multiple officials in their team that my daughter was able to book herself on the very same flight and even received a confirmation within a few minutes.

I have also outlined that it is a health emergency and my urgent need to travel with my daughter as she will require my assistance throughout the journey. How is it the case that my request for the same flight and cabin class was rejected despite all of this, especially when I can see seats still available in the seat map? My daughter and I cannot afford to lose out on this flight just because of unprofessional delays at their end and the negligence of their customer care team.

Their customer care official Ashif T, who was supposed to help me during my most recent chat, was unable to comprehend my request and it's clear he/she does not understand basic English. After having requested to be connected to a supervisor multiple times, he finally said that someone from the relevant team will contact me on my phone number but I haven't received any call.

Since I have repeatedly mentioned that this is a health emergency and their team keeps delaying things, will the company pay a penalty if my daughter's health gets worse?

Or will they take responsibility for the delays and negligence and cover the cost of her treatment?

Their customer service officials on the live chat are highly incompetent and they have made it impossible to contact them via any other channel.

There is no email address or even a call centre. How does one go about raising an urgent query then?

They need to make sure to provide a very convincing explanation along with a solution for this mess they have created.