Wigwam Village - Crooks
- July 7, 2008
- Rated 1 of 5 by
Ajay0876 from Elgin, Illinois
I booked a room at the Wigwam village for July 4-5 on May 13. I was really excited to stay here until l read all of the awful reviews here and on other websites. I cancelled my reservation on May 15th. I asked the person I spoke with if I needed a confirmation number of my cancellation and he said no it was cancelled.
Of course come the night of July 4 they called me and wanted to know where I was. I called back and got their answering machine and left a message stating that I cancelled my reservation in May - there must be a mixup, please DO NOT CHARGE MY CREDIT CARD, call me and I left my phone number.
Of course they never called and when I called my credit card company on July 5 they had put through a charge both on the 4th and the 5th - even after getting my message! I called the Wigwam after I found this out and spoke to the owner. He refused to listen to me when I told him I cancelled my reservations in May and even tried to tell me I had only just made them last week and had never cancelled them!!! Then he proceeded to complain about how I was causing him to lose money and he even stooped to calling me "ignorant and illiterate". I was furious!! I told him he was wrong and he had no right to charge my credit card and he knew it - especially after he got my message (which he admitted to me he had heard that morning) and I demanded that he refund my money immediately. He threatened to sue me because I raised my voice to him and claimed (in broken english) that he was a lawyer and was recording the phone call. He then asked me to hold and I could hear him talking about me to someone else in the background and they were laughing at me!!!
Finally after much arguing he said he would refund my charge and I told him to give me the credit transaction code from his machine when he rang it through. He told me he would do it and to call back in 5 minutes and he would give me the transaction code. Of course when I called back he wouldn't answer the phone. I tried calling 3 times and he still refused to answer...So I used my cell phone to call and... what a surprise...he picked up since he must've seen it was a different phone number calling. He claimed that he had refunded my card the full amount yet he refused to tell me what the transaction code was from the credit transaction and that "I have no right to that information". He told me to call my credit card company and call him back if it hadn't gone through. I did call my credit card company and they told me that in the meantime he had charged my card 6 more times for the room!!!!! I was livid at this point and of course when I tried to call him back he wouldn't answer the phone. I then called the Cave City Police and had them go and talk to him since he refused to talk to me. He claimed to them that he put through the credit and that my credit card company is the ones who are wrong - yet he still couldn't provide any proof that he credited my account. All in all he managed to ring up over $400 of unauthorized charges on my card and I have since had to cancel my credit card to keep it from being charged anymore.
The man who owns this place is nuts!! Avoid this place at all costs - I am reporting them to the BBB, the Cave City Chamber of Commerce, to prevent anyone else from having to deal with their shady business practices and credit card fraud!!! Be sure to check out all the terrible reviews for this place on other travel websites!!! I found out that I am not the first person he has done this to - one woman said he continued to charge her card 3 times AFTER she checked out!!!