Chargeback - the friend of every traveller

When we had that bad experience in a hostel in Riga, we were very upset and angry (just to recall: no free parking, no breakfast but has bedbugs in the room and the whole hostel was dirty).

We decided to try something which is called chargeback. First I heard it from one of my colleagues, whose credit card data was possibly stolen in a shop, and later on some online gambling was paid with it. In his case, his bank's fraud department spotted the unusual transactions and alerted him. Then, after the chargeback procedure, he got the money back onto his account.

In our case, our base of the chargeback was the lack of the services provided (free parking, breakfast), and the poor quality of the room (including the bedbugs, which once you have it in your backpack, you most probably need to throw all your clothes away, because if you don't do that, you bring them to your house and never get rid of them).

So basically, all you need to know is that if you pay with your card the way your card is not present (so online), and in some way, you don't get the value for the price you paid, you are entitled for your money. All you need to do is to claim it by turning to your card issuing bank. (For those who are interested in the detailed process, here is a thorough description) The form of the contact vary on the bank (phone, online form or mail/email). The more the document you have, the better your chances are. We made photos about the parking meter on the street, the parking ticket, the "breakfast" and the room/bed. In our case, the merchant (the hostel) answered for the chargeback request by diminishing all the issues we complained about, but could not provide evidence which could prove they did everything according to the services they offered. And this is an important part: the merchant need to provide evidence. If it is not able, the money is back to you. In some cases, the merchant doesn't even answer to the bank's chargeback request. Even better. After a certain time: the money is back to you.

It could take a while (1 to 6 month), but it feels great once you have the official letter from the bank.

Before we turned to our bank, we wrote to Booking.com, because we booked the room via their website. Of course - as we expected - they did not take any responsibility about the accomodations advertising itself. But after changing a couple of emails, they refunded the price of the parking ticket.

So, at the end of this story, our expenses were covered, except the disconfort caused by the bedbugs. But we learned the lesson: no matter how urgently you need a room, always read the comments first! All our problems were there already (except the parking issue, but I suppose most of the hotel's guests are backpakers without a car).