A man who tried to book $6,400 worth of Christmas holiday worth $6,400 online assumed the deal hadn’t closed when he received a message informing him that the accommodation was unavailable.
Thus, he was later surprised to see that the cash had been withdrawn from his credit card account.
The man, who contacted the company but was denied a refund, filed a complaint with the Court of Disputes, claiming that he never received a confirmation email stating that the booking had been made and that he had run out of money.
He has now controlled up to $1,000, which consists of reservation and cleaning fees that were refunded, as well as a $500 order after the court ruled that the vendor was unreasonable in failing to re-advertise the room when the error was discovered.
The court dismissed the entire claim for about $7,000, adding interest and application fees in addition to a full refund, when it found that the tourist’s loss was not due to an error in the booking system.
In October last year, the man, whose name is not listed in the decision, used an anonymous letter to search for and book holiday accommodation in New Zealand for Christmas and New Year’s.
He decided on an asset and entered some information, adding his credit card details, but when he sent the booking request, he said he received a pop-up message stating that the assets were unavailable.
He thought this meant the booking was already made, so his wife booked accommodation for their holiday elsewhere.
Just before Christmas last year, the man saw his credit card charged $6,390 in two separate payments, which is equivalent to the total value of the accommodation reservation.
He immediately called the online page and said that according to his online system, the assets had been registered through him in October 2023.
The company, which said the dispute arose five days before the couple’s arrival, refused to cancel the reservation and refund the money.
He then asked if the assets could be put back up for sale, which could help mitigate his loss, but that too he denied.
The tribunal’s arbitrator, Shaurya Malaviya, said the dispute was based on the guy inadvertently booking the assets or an error in the website’s online booking system.
The guy claimed that a technical error in the formula showed the reservation his knowledge.
He also said that a confirmation email was sent to the email address and that the message he received that the assets were no longer available were still being charged for the reservation indicated a “competition issue” that he said was not unusual with Online Page Reservation features.
He said this was the only logical explanation for what happened, or that email “scraping” — the use of automated bots to collect email addresses from online resources — was another not unusual challenge that may have occurred in his case as well.
The booking site denied any errors in the formula or that its formula had created or replaced email addresses. He said that the booking confirmation was automatically sent to the email entered in the booking.
The plaintiff said this was “highly unlikely” because his browser auto-filled his email and had been the same for 25 years.
A representative of the reserve told the court at the hearing that the reserve formula operated on an automated platform and did not have any human element.
They denied that a message that the goods were not owned had given the impression and that if an error occurred, the guest would know about it and the reservation would not be accepted.
In this specific case, the computer logs were checked and no problems were identified.
Malaviya said he was ultimately unconvinced that the reservation was the result of a formulaic error.
He said it’s automated and designed to accept online bookings.
“If there was a challenge like the one described by (the plaintiff), it would probably have an effect on other consumers as well and that doesn’t seem to have happened here. “
He admitted that while the booking site was not required to put the assets back up for sale, he considered its decision to refuse to be “harsh” under the circumstances.
“Many last-minute bidders would likely have run into this availability, which could have mitigated the losses as well. “
Tracy Neal is an Open Justice journalist founded in Nelson, NZME. In the past she was a regional reporter for RNZ in Nelson-Marlborough and covered general news adding courts and local governments for the Nelson Mail.