agoda complaint: No Overnight Stay at Albert Road, Woodstook – Refusal of Refund

Me and my partner booked a one night stay away for his birthday and for the fact that he never gets days off from work.
We arrived at our destination and were greeted by a security, my first experience as normally there is a friendly host who greets you when you arrive and checks you in.

We were asked to provide a room number, which my partner explained we did not have, but that Agoda had emailed us a booking ID number.
Security was adamant that we needed to provide a room number.
My partner proceeded to ask if there was Wi-fi so that he may access his emails to try and find this room number he kept on about.
Security told us that there was only Wi-fi in the rooms, so we had to leave and drive around to find a shop in order to buy data.
We returned at the hotel and went through our emails and found no such room number.
I was annoyed as this sounded ridiculous to me, not to mention that we weren’t getting much assistance.

The security guard was training another guard to fill in for him on that day and seemed busy with him, sort of as though he was ignoring us and wanted us to leave.

We then asked what we were supposed to do and he said that we should have the room number on our emails somewhere, my partner then passed the phone to him to check through and he found nothing except for the booking ID from Agoda.

He then provided us with a number to contact to get assistance from them and wouldn’t even allow us to use the front reception phone. My partner knew that he never had much airtime left, but called the number that security had provided us to call.
That was a complete waste of time and they couldn’t assist us either and they gave us another number to call and then another number.
My partner spoke with 4 different individuals back and forth and none of them could assist us.

We stood around helplessly not sure of what should be done. Eventually security pointed us to a gentleman dressed in jeans and a t-shirt saying that we could speak to him as he was the host.
We approached him and his friend and I could tell that he was agitated and didn’t want to help.
He pulled out his phone and my partner showed him the booking ID from Agoda and provided him with the name we booked in with. He scrolled through his phone for a minute or two and said he had no booking information for us and walked toward the lift and left.
We were dumb founded and fuming at this point. My partner noticed an office next to the reception area with a gentleman inside and approached him to ask for assistance.
He was some sort of manager and went on for what seemed an hour showing us hundreds of complaints that he was dealing with about unhappy clients who wanted refunds, double bookings, the host and how poorly the property was run and how he was trying to get the place running efficiently, but that it wasn’t really in his hands to do that.
He gave us the owners contact number. My partner proceeded to call him and he answered rudely not interested in what our issue was, but rather who had given us his number, shortly after my partners airtime ran out and the manager did not even bother to call us back.

We then went back to the gentleman in the office to explain to him what had happened and he told us that it was highly unlikely that we would get a refund.
We had no other choice but to leave, as it was late and we had found no resolution, and it was the end of the day and it would be pointless to waste any more money to stay somewhere else, plus there would be no places available. We were both extremely angry and agitated and got stuck in peak hour traffic at which point the car over heated and we were forced to pull over to the side of the road and wait until traffic subsided and the car had cooled down.

It was the worst day we had ever experienced and we mostly argued that day.

I contacted Agoda and asked for a refund and to date they have been very unhelpful.
The hotel has lied to them stating the below as per correspondence from Agoda.

March 15, 2023 1:58 pm – Olga K
The hotel has ed that they were able to properly accomodate you.

March 16, 2023 6:55 pm – Celyn Marie
Request denied for refund as the room was available at the time of your check in and we should contact them directly.

March 20, 2023 10:25 am – An
Claim refused as the room was ready to accomodate you.

Clearly Agoda is not investigating this matter at all, as the emails provided to us aren’t providing us with any proof of our so called stay there.

There were cameras above the reception area where we were standing which would clearly show us arriving and leaving and never returning, also we never checked in or out so there should be proof of that, and we dealt with 3 people on that day who saw us leave – security, the host and the manager in the office next to the reception area.

Agoda is a waste of time and not helpful at all. I am drained emotionally and wasting so much time, energy and money phoning from Cape Town to Johannesburg to hear the same things over and over, its as if they are given a script and recite it over each time I call, not listening to anything I am saying.

I would recommend to anyone not to book through Agoda as it seems they do not inspect these places for overnight stays to see if they are properly run.

Agoda are thieves and I want my money back.