Examples of scams / spams

                                               
I sent this letter on 08-13-2007 to one of EXPEDIA’s CEO and later to their President and Senior vice president, customer operations. NO RESPONSE so far. A failure to respond only means that EXPEDIA’s executives are fully supporting their deceptive business practice including their attempt to scam me.
 

I just edited (to remove) personal  data :
(Name of one of EXPEDIA’s CEO)
Chief executive officer
******@expedia.com

I found your e-mail address in the internet.  I writing since it is going to be almost one year after I received an e-mail from one of your representatives in response to my e-mail regarding my case. My case  is too gruesome in detail that I’m running a website to alert people about how bad EXPEDIA is and how they tried to scam me (http://www.victimsofexpedia.com/mycase.htm) . I have no other possible explanation for all EXPEDIA has done after they failed to arrange one of my trip.
 
I’m pretty sure you know about my case (Case ID: [REQ:21826350]). Just in case, I’m sending this e-mail to you in order to document I tried to reach the highest level at EXPEDIA.com in order to solve my case.
I doubt you will ever answer this e-mail because I think you are familiar with my case (did you ever look for “expedia complaints” in Google or Yahoo?
 
Below are copies of the latest messages I send to and I received from EXPEDIA.
 
Sincerely Yours truly,
XXXX, XXXXX
 
 
 

                                               
I sent this letter on 08-13-2007 to one of EXPEDIA’s CEO and later to their President and Senior vice president, customer operations. NO RESPONSE so far. A failure to respond only means that EXPEDIA’s executives are fully supporting their deceptive business practice including their attempt to scam me.
 

I just edited (to remove) personal  data :
(Name of one of EXPEDIA’s CEO)
Chief executive officer
******@expedia.com

I found your e-mail address in the internet.  I writing since it is going to be almost one year after I received an e-mail from one of your representatives in response to my e-mail regarding my case. My case  is too gruesome in detail that I’m running a website to alert people about how bad EXPEDIA is and how they tried to scam me (http://www.victimsofexpedia.com/mycase.htm) . I have no other possible explanation for all EXPEDIA has done after they failed to arrange one of my trip.
 
I’m pretty sure you know about my case (Case ID: [REQ:21826350]). Just in case, I’m sending this e-mail to you in order to document I tried to reach the highest level at EXPEDIA.com in order to solve my case.
I doubt you will ever answer this e-mail because I think you are familiar with my case (did you ever look for “expedia complaints” in Google or Yahoo?
 
Below are copies of the latest messages I send to and I received from EXPEDIA.
 
Sincerely Yours truly,
XXXX, XXXXX
 
 
 

It is simple, start a victimsofexpedia-like reaction:
The “victimsofexpedia  reaction” or  “victimsofexpedia effect” is a massive response to alert customers about how bad a company is and to show how this company lies, cheats or do anything unethical or even fraudulent to keep money from customers. The idea is to use the wide resources the internet provides to talk/discuss about travel. This idea represents a new step to prevent damage to customers. First at all: don’t do anything illegal or unethical, don’t use bad words, don’t promote violence or hate. Simply tell the truth to as many people as you can.
In my particular case, my story (A horrible experience using EXPEDIA) is being posted in many different travel forums, blogs, general complain sites that allow to post comments, answers, or anything to alert potential victims. It was submitted to different media (but the media don’t care since they are afraid to lose the money they make by advertising).
This concept was created by an unsatisfied customer (me, A.K.A. John Doe, Doe3001) after EXPEDIA:
 - Lied to me many times - and tried to steal money (1,254.95 U$D) from my credit card for an airline ticket that EXPEDIA failed to deliver.
The idea is to alert (by sharing my case all over the internet) as many people as possible about how EXPEDIA can ruin your trip or vacation, and more important to alert people that 1) EXPEDIA will probably do nothing to solve problems (even if it was generated by EXPEDIA), 2) EXPEDIA will try to keep the money from customers no matter what,  3) EXPEDIA will probably not reimburse a penny for all the problems generated by them.
Sites where I already posted/sent my story/link to my  site :
Travel forums:
TripAdvisor - flyertalk - tripso - familytravelboards - frommers - travel-information.org - fodors - lonelyplanet - travellerspoint - independenttraveler - travelblog.org - letsgo - ThisIsTravel -
General Complaint sites:
my3cents - planetfeedback - clarkhoward - Elliot - ripoffreport  (EXPEDIA is listed here in the top rip off links – a well deserved merit-) – scam -
General Review sites:
e-opinions - mouthshut - rateitall -
Run your own website(s):
If you have time, money and skills, you can run a website (or more) and a blog. This is very effective,
1) www.victimsofexpedia.com is becoming very popular: 
-          Thousands of travelers have been already alerted and they have now a chance to avoid being scammed by EXPEDIA.
-          People all over the world now know how EXPEDIA tried to scam me : see the map showing the location of the visitors: http://www2.clustrmaps.com/counter/maps.php?url=http://www.victimsofexpedia.com
2) www.expedianews.com (read here daily complaints about EXPEDIA) is a new site but the number of visitors is increasing. EXPEDIA is great. They give us a chance to post a complaint almost every day. If you consider that
 Since I’m only telling the truth, I believe EXPEDIA cannot do anything (at least legally) to stop me. If I suddenly appear at the bottom of the sea ……….
They cannot sue me for libel and slander. Besides, I’m helping people to avoid being scammed.
After all these you can be sure that the company that tried to scam you should be very pissed off.
 

Typical from EXPEDIA.

Read the full story at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/action_line/story/289782.html#recent_comm

Typical from EXPEDIA.

Read the full story at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/action_line/story/289782.html#recent_comm

Typical from EXPEDIA.

Read the full story at:

http://www.miamiherald.com/action_line/story/289782.html#recent_comm

  If you are looking for the truth ask EXPEDIA by yourself. You can send this letter to them at:  (Expedia Travel Support < Travel@customercare.expedia.com  )
 
Dear EXPEDIA customer support team
 
To whom it might concern:  I would appreciate if you can give me your version about the “victimsofexpedia.com” affaire. Apparently there is a guy who created that site (http://www.victimsofexpedia.com) and claims that EXPEDIA tried to scam him.
He claims that EXPEDIA failed to deliver an airline ticket (twice) and later, instead of fixing the problem (originated by EXPEDIA) you ignored several messages from him and from KLM to arrange his trip.
He also claims that EXPEDIA, repeatedly lied to him and tried to scam him by reimbursing only 800 U$D when actually EXPEDIA charged his credit card for 1,254.95 U$D.  If this is true, it is fraud anywhere and makes you a “scammer”. Even a kid can realize that.
According to him, he could recover the full amount of his money after 6-7 month only after he provided to his credit card company proof of your lies and attempt to scam him. Since I don’t know his name, I’m providing his Case ID: [REQ:21826350]. I’m sure you have all the details about his case.
It is difficult to believe that a legitimate company like EXPEDIA would do such horrible things to a customer, thus, I would also like to know why EXPEDIA does not sue him for libel and slander. Is EXPEDIA afraid? Is EXPEDIA trying to avoid more bad publicity? . According to him, you prefer to be silent and continue yours  “unethical business practice” because you might be able to make billions cheating other customers.
It is difficult to believe that an honest company (Is EXPEDIA honest?) will tolerate this kind of lies (or is he telling the truth?).
He is also making fun of your company. These two pages are really hilarious:
http://www.victimsofexpedia.com/jokes.01.htm
http://www.victimsofexpedia.com/templates.htm
This is how he refers about this incident and about your company::
-          “EXPEDIA tried to scam me (1,254.95 USD)…..and failed miserable” (too pathetic for EXPEDIA)
-          “The most expensive 0.00 U$D EXPEDIA ever made” (very funny, since you failed to scam him).
Moreover, he is conducting an interesting survey about EXPEDIA: these are the results so far:


  The more I read about his case, the more I believe him. Regardless, I’m sending you this letter but he says that you will probably never answer this message because you are only interested in money. According to him, for EXPEDIA it is more profitable to cheat customers than to answer their questions.
Anyway, thanks for the time.
Sincerely Yours truly
                          

If you buy a ticket for 1249,95 U$D EXPEDIA will charge you a 5 U$D fee and it will appear a total 1254,95 U$D transaction in your credit card. 

What if EXPEDIA fail to provide the service? What if EXPEDIA never arrange your trip? 

Who keeps that money? Do you think that the airline see that money? Do you think EXPEDIA cheats people to make the airlines richer? 

If the airline never sees that money then EXPEDIA can make a fortune by simply selling something (tickets, rooms). Then, they just need to find an excuse (or even lie or cheat you) to not provide the service and keep your money.  

Well, something like that happened to me with EXPEDIA (read my case at http://www.victimsofexpedia.com/mycase.htm ). 

In my case the conclusion is pretty simple: 

EXPEDIA failed to arrange my trip, then EXPEDIA lied to me = EXPEDIA tried to scam me. 

No matter what EXPEDIA says it was an attempt to scam me. 

Be careful, you might be the next victims 

Travel agents should take alert people about EXPEDIA. It is a kind of moral duty.

Simply refer your customer to this sites: http://www.victimsofexpedia.com

ot http://www.expedianews.com

They will make a big difference in travelers life and improve ethics in the travel industry.

 Wikipedia’s accuracy was compared to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and for many topics (e.g. science) it seems to be very reliable. However, I discovered that some contributors were modifying Wikipedia on behalf a big, multibillion company. That incident damaged Wikipedia’s accuracy.
If you reach the entry in Wikipedia for  “EXPEDIA” you will find (sometimes) a section about “customer Feedback” that says :
“As is common with large internet travel agencies, some customers have been unsatisfied with various aspects of Expedia.com products and services. Customer complaints include lost reservations, erroneous hotel accommodations, poor customer service, and failure to post negative reviews online at Expedia.com ……’
What is very interesting is that if you check another day the same entry, the section about “customer feedback” will eventually (misteriously) dissapear. That means that someone is helping EXPEDIA to delete their negative aspects from wikipedia.
I had been following that entry for few days and I noticed that someone (I swear it wasn’t me) write that section in Wikipedia and someone else erase from there. That happened few times in the last month.

What is more interesting is that the entry for Orbitz (although contains a negative section called “controversies” ) was not erased during the same period of time.

What is even more and more interesting is that someone in the  FLYERTALK forum (I put the thread there) apparently found out that “The netblock that the user who is removing the entry is posting from is owned by Expedia (. I’ve brought this up on the article’s talk page.” . He or she put a note in Wikipedia discussion :

“Anyone notice that 199.3.115.254 who keeps removing the customer service section is posting from Expedia.com SPRINTLINK (NET-199-3-115-0-1) 199.3.115.0 - 199.3.115.255
I’m not saying that the section necessarily belongs, but that removal of uncomplimentary items by someone from the company looks fishy. — Alanhwiki 21:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Retrieved from ““http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Expedia”

Someone, the media or the authorities should investigates this. I’m not saying EXPEDIA is doing this. But someone on behalf of EXPEDIA does. My opinion is that people don’t help big companies for free.
What’s yours ?

After this incident, the customer sections remains there.
The big questions now are: “how many other companies have been doing the same”? How much can we trust Wikipedia when we look for information about big companies”?
EXPEDIA (not its friends)  tried to scam me too but this is a different story but it makes you wonder what kind of people are we dealing with.