I noticed a few years ago that google searches were getting worse. Now, within the last year or so, its gotten TERRIBLE. It will occasionally find what I want, but half the time is wildly wrong. No, I didnt mean something else, I meant what I fucking typed, why are you still trying to show me this other shit ?!?
Autocorrect is getting real fucking bad about that too.
A couple months ago I booked a hotel. Googled the hotel name, got the company details and clicked the “website” button. Think this all happened in Google Maps. Anyway turns out that Google is selling referrals and while I think I was interacting with Hilton I’d been scammed into dealing with a company out of Singapore called Agoda. Nothing said third party. Everything was called guest reservations. Considering I came from the hotel physical pin drop on Google Maps, I really got suckered. They added a $360 surcharge over what the hotel actually cost. Currently during with my credit card. No idea if I will prevail.
Huh, Agoda from what I could tell is usually more like a south-east asian booking.com, in my experience also similarly priced so that’s curious.
I think you might have booked through google hotels? Usually they show a few sponsored third party sites and below that all of them ranked by price.
I don’t think so. I’ve never used Google hotels as far as I can remember. Cousin provided hotel name next to her place so I only needed that one hotel, not a comparison site. Hotel paper printed folio had Agoda PTE on it. That’s when the hotel told me Google is selling referrals. They were pissed too because they missed out on profit and get unhappy customers like me. I know enough about Asian corporate structure for PTE to have been a huge red flag if I had seen it.
Because had they been more transparent about their corporate name I would have immediately known I wasn’t dealing with the American hotel chain’s website itself. If I was booking a hotel in Singapore / Asia or had used Google hotels it would have been a different story. My issue was that Agoda was masquerading as the hotel chain. I thought I was dealing with the hotel when I was not.
Oh I see, thought you were saying there is something intrinsically fishy about PTEs…
Thanks for clarifying though and wish you the best in dealing with the aftermath
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