nightmare experience - with blackmail ending
We had a nightmare experience: - the villa we booked through villa-bali.com was infested with ticks, we realized this unfortunately only after having spent a couple of nights in the villa. We were traveling with a one year old and this was a health threat we were not prepared to face any longer. So, as soon as we noticed, we documented the infestation and we reported it to the agency saying that we could not stay st the villa anymore due to the infestation and we would have like assistance in moving to a new place and to be reimbursed for the nights at the villa we had already paid for in advance but that we could not spend at the villa. This was June 8th, it is now June 22th and we still have not been assisted with this issue. All we have is a ruined holiday, an extra expense for the nights we had to move to another accommodation and a lot of time wasted chasing villa-bali.com who is not responding to us. We have asked to be reimbursed and compensated, but apparently no one cares. If, on top of this, you add that: - before leaving for the trips we booked, through villa-bali.com, a driver to pick us up at the airport and we specifically requested that the driver bring a baby car seat. The driver arrived to pick us up with no baby seat. We reported this to villa-Bali.com and the answer was: "he forgot”. The baby car seat was requested for safety reasons, forgetting it is not acceptable. Also, we paid extra so that we could keep our one year old safe in the car, can we be reimbursed for the driver’s forgetfulness? Apparently no one cares about this either - additionally, we had only requested a driver to pick us up at the airport but, for some reason, villa-Bali.com also autonomously booked us a driver for the next day. Luckily we checked our emails and realized we were going to be charged for something we never requested. We had to spend a prolonged period of time trying to contact the agency to cancel the non-wanted-service, because it was impossible to connect with them. - lastly, we emailed the agency on the night of Monday 4th of June asking if we could book a car for Tuesday 5th of June (i.e. we put the request in more than 12 hours in advance). No answer. The next morning, we called to check whether the car could come pick us up and the answer was: "you need to give us at least 4 hours notice so we have not booked your car". Not sure how 12 hours are less than 4 hours and how this was our fault but that’s the answer we were given. Once again we could not get the service we needed. I am NEVER using this agency again and would not recommend it to anyone. UPDATE 5/7: after many emails and phone calls, Villa Bali offered to compensate us (by refunding us 100% of the cost) provided that we sign a non-disclosure settlement agreement from their lawyer. This is unheard of and non-standard business practice and we will not be signing this document to be compensated for Villa Bali’s malpractice. Villa Bali decied to only reimburse us for the pre-paid nights we were not able to spend at the villa but no compensation for ruining our holiday and putting our health in danger was provided. So on top of everything else we have now also been blackmailed in orderd to get compensated. UPDATE 6/7: UPDATE 6/7: after my review was posted, Villa Bali reimbursed us in full and compensated us without the document having to be signed. Thank you.