Agoda.com False Advertisement/Phishing Scheme Bangkok, Internet

Used an internet search to look for hotels near a certain location in New York City. Several hotels came up on the map. Hovered the cursor over one of them, and an advertisement for the hotel directed me to Agoda.com.

At the Agoda.com site, I entered my credit card information to reserve the room. Once the room was reserved, I received an email from Agoda.com indicating that my reservation was complete. However, the hotel was not located in New York City. Agoda.com had taken my reservation for a hotel with the exact same name in Bangalore, India.

I cancelled my reservation within minutes of this "mistake", but Agoda.com did not provide a refund. Their customer service email indicated that no refunds were allowed.

It appears that Agoda.com deliberately tries to confuse people and book them in hotels in locations they do not intend to visit by advertising these hotels on search sites featuring hotels of the exact same name in other locations. If the traveler does not notice that the location was switched at checkout, the traveler is billed for the unusable reservation, and the traveler does not receive a refund.