Well where do I start with this lot.
On our arrival Wednesday the 8th of April my partner entered the guest house first whilst I waited outside with the luggage. After a couple of minutes waiting, my partner re-emerged to tell me there was some confusion over the booking. She asked me if I had booked the room in my name or her name.. I assured her that the booking was made in my name. She returned inside whereupon the lady owner ( Katie) informed her that she had found the booking.com e-mail that confirmed our booking and everything was therefore fine.
So nothing to worry about we were assured.
What we did not realise at this point in the proceedings that I had got the dates mixed up and had actually booked for the day before, Tuedsay the 7th of April and not for the intended Wednesday the 8th of April . My fault. However there was no mention of this at any point from the owners. My mistake was obviously the reason for the initial mix up when we arrived a day late but at no point did any of the 2 owners care to share this with us. They discretely kept this to themselves.. Alarmingly, we had absolutely no idea that they had already been credited with the full £61 fee from our bank account for the previous day no show. Again they never had the decency to inform us.
So here we were sitting in their guest house ready to start what we thought was our first day in Oban and this lot already had 61 quid from our account. We were allocated our room and climbed the stairs blissfully unaware that we had arrived on the wrong day and were down £61.
We got showered etc and we were later greeted by George the co-owner. We left the hotel and we took off to explore the delights of Oban. Again no mention about the confusion of the booking dates. In hindsight it seemed as if they were keeping this entirely to themselves.
The owners kept up this pretence for the duration of our stay knowing fine well that we were absolutely unaware that we had the dates mixed up.
Next morning we were greeted by George in the breakfast room and after a somewhat spartan breakfast, he invited us to pay for our single nights stay for the Wednesday 8th April. We did this by credit card. Again even at this juncture there was never any mention of the mix up with the dates. We then left for home
After a 3 hour drive we arrived back home and I went to check my balance on my credit card. To my astonishment there had been two separate payments to the Lagganbeg hotel, one for the 7th and another for the 8th April. A total of £122
It was at this point that I suddenly realised my error. I checked the booking.com e-mails and realised I had booked the room for the 7th of April, not the 8th. Furthermore I was angry that the owners of the hotel had been credited to the sum of £122 without having the decency or courtesy to let us know we had booked for the 7th of April rather than the 8th in error. They kept up this pretence throughout our entire stay probably in the hope we would not notice the debits at our bank.
We got in touch with booking.com and they were excellent. They tried their best on 2 occasions to plead with the owners to waive their fee for 1 of the nights given the fact that there were rooms\ vacancies still available within the hotel on the 7th and 8th of April. The couple refused outright to waiver any fee on each occasion. Blatant profiteering by stealth.
How they managed to look us in the eye throughout our stay knowing that we had made an honest mistake in our booking, god only knows. Very very nasty sleight of hand and a complete betrayal of trust.
A truly sickening experience which makes the decent amongst us lose faith in humanity.
Yes these people are walking amongst us.