Help! Question about LMT

[melli_fera]

Trying to book a room for this saturday through last minute travel (after reading about it on here) and I got the following email today. Has anyone had this experience? It sounds fishy to me, but i'm new to LMT. The person who wrote me is from a travel agency... not LMT.

 

 

 

Hello Melissa, this e-mail is in regards to your LastMinuteTravel booking pertaining to the following:

We received your request for the XXXX, and were able to confirm it with the hotel. Unfortunately your credit card has been declined. We have on file a XXX Card ending in -XXXX. We tend to have occasional problems with credit card security, as our bank is located overseas, so this is not a rare occurrence. Please e-mail me back or call me at XXXX ext: XXX. My hours here are 9:00 am to 5:30 pm eastern time. If you could please call your card company to let them know of the situation so we can effectively charge you for this booking, it would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I will need for you to provide me with another credit card to fully confirm this reservation for you as soon as possible. If I don't hear back from you before 12:00 pm September 15th, I will need to cancel this reservation. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

 

[aurelius180]

Trying to book a room for this saturday through last minute travel (after reading about it on here) and I got the following email today. Has anyone had this experience? It sounds fishy to me, but i'm new to LMT. The person who wrote me is from a travel agency... not LMT.

 

 

 

Hello Melissa, this e-mail is in regards to your LastMinuteTravel booking pertaining to the following:

 

We received your request for the XXXX, and were able to confirm it with the hotel. Unfortunately your credit card has been declined. We have on file a XXX Card ending in -XXXX. We tend to have occasional problems with credit card security, as our bank is located overseas, so this is not a rare occurrence. Please e-mail me back or call me at XXXX ext: XXX. My hours here are 9:00 am to 5:30 pm eastern time. If you could please call your card company to let them know of the situation so we can effectively charge you for this booking, it would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I will need for you to provide me with another credit card to fully confirm this reservation for you as soon as possible. If I don't hear back from you before 12:00 pm September 15th, I will need to cancel this reservation. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

 

 

 

 

That's a tough one! When I booked a room on LMT earlier this year my CC was declined on the website at the time of booking and my CC company called me right after it was declined. The CC company declined the reservation because they thought it was suspicious. Once I cleared the charge with the CC it worked on the website.

 

So I do know it happens but mine happened at the time of booking and I did not receive an email.

 

This was my first time using LMT but had used EasyClick before and LMT had my login form EasyClick but I entered the CC number.

 

I would call your bank first to see if they rejected the charge.

[melli_fera]

after doing a little googling, the travel agency this person works for is an affiliate of LMT. I know my bank hasn't charged me yet, that's because LMT didn't receive confirmation from the hotel yet. If their story checks out, and the bank did decline the charge, I'll have them re-run it.

 

Very interesting that they use an off-shore bank...

[aurelius180]

after doing a little googling, the travel agency this person works for is an affiliate of LMT. I know my bank hasn't charged me yet, that's because LMT didn't receive confirmation from the hotel yet. If their story checks out, and the bank did decline the charge, I'll have them re-run it.

 

Very interesting that they use an off-shore bank...

 

 

They're actually a foreign company with local offices in the US. They're owned by Travel Holdings which is headquartered in Tel Aviv which may explain the use of a foreign bank.

[eandj]

I'd be grateful that my credit card company is watching for fraud. Easy enough to call the cc bank and okay the charge.

[melli_fera]

I checked my statement online yesterday and the charge shows up there. I asked LMT to check to see if this reflects on their system. I got an email today from LMT saying that it didn't go through.

 

According to my bank, there was an issue with over the limit fees, which make no sense, unless LMT had tried to push this charge through more than once, which according to them, they did.

 

I got the authorization code from my bank as proof of the charge yesterday (one charge), and I send it to LMT. I didn't get a response to that email, but this is what I DID get:

Dear Melissa,

I just retried to charge the credit card on file and it went through this time. I have sent the voucher to the email we have on file. Thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoy your stay.

 

I freaked out, and just went online to check my statement and now there are THREE identical charges there.

 

I just sent a message saying that i did NOT authorize them to charge my card again. They told me to get back to them so they would know if I need to use another card, or if they should charge the card again. I DID get back to them and told them the charge went through my bank, and they ignored that and charged my card TWO MORE TIMES.

 

I'm doing this all through email to keep a paper trail.

 

I'm not very confident with LMT right now. I'm beside myself

[melli_fera]

here's their final explanation:

 

Dear Melissa,

We are showing that only 1 of the charges was processed and that our system rejected the other attempts. I have been advised by our accounting department that the charges may be pending with your credit card company and will drop off since they were rejected on our end. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact me. Thank you!

 

NOT COOL. Just called my bank again, and they said that the merchant has to "claim" those funds within 3 business days. If they don't (he says they shouldn't since their accounting system shows them as rejected), then the bank would help me file a dispute of those duplicate charges.

 

I don't think I'll ever deal with these people again. All to save $30. Not worth the hassle.

 

That's what i get for being cheap, I suppose.

[eandj]

WOW! That all would add to daily stress levels for me, I know. I haven't heard of any kind of problems like you are having.

I would work with your bank/credit card to straighten this out. Seems things got crossed in the processes and emails. The bank should be able to unscramble this without filing any claims. Hope you are speaking to the same person at the bank each time you have communicated. And that this person has authority to do what you are asking. If not, I'd move up the ladder asap.

[melli_fera]

WOW! That all would add to daily stress levels for me, I know. I haven't heard of any kind of problems like you are having.

I would work with your bank/credit card to straighten this out. Seems things got crossed in the processes and emails. The bank should be able to unscramble this without filing any claims. Hope you are speaking to the same person at the bank each time you have communicated. And that this person has authority to do what you are asking. If not, I'd move up the ladder asap.

 

It's hard because they're all "pending" transactions and supposedly the bank can't "see" the entire transaction until it actually posts to the account. I'll be watching this like a hawk, however.

[sandancer]

I have recently booked a 5 night stay in Florida using LMT. After checking cc statement, all appears to be in order. I think I would be nervous of using them again in future after your experience.

[melli_fera]

this could be because i'm using a debit card... but i can't say for sure... we'll see how things look tomorrow.

[jillyfish]

I think you may be paranoid over nothing.

 

With todays technology and everything at our fingertips we are able to access more than we ever have been. I too have had a 'pending' charge on my credit card that I freaked out over. (not from LMT) They told me the same thing, it would drop off. It did and all was well. We have never been able to 'see' these pending charges like we are able to today with internet access to our accounts.

 

Did you also know at some gas stations when you slide your card into the pump a $100 'pending' charge shows up. After a few days, the $100 charge gets adjusted to the amount you actually pumped.

[melli_fera]

the more i think about it, it seems like this WILL check out.

 

they ran the card 3 times - supposedly declined twice, and accepted once. I have 3 pending transactions on my statement. Two should drop and one should remain. Just wish I didn't have a couple hundred dollars hung up possibly until monday... but it should be fine so long as the duplicates get dropped at some point.

[MamaParrotHead]

If it makes you feel any better, we used LMT without incident in January and everything worked out legit.

[eandj]

this could be because i'm using a debit card... but i can't say for sure... we'll see how things look tomorrow.

 

 

:eek:Oh NO!!!

NEVER use a debit card for this kind of transaction. If you have any problems, they already have your money. No recourse. Use a regular credit card that you can dispute if something doens't go the right way. Saves a ton of worry as you can see. This explains your problem.

And as you said, they are holding onto YOUR money as they work this mess out. Learn a lesson here. And it's not just using LMT. Debit cards ask for trouble more than any kind of transaction.

 

Good luck! ANd have a great cruise!

[aurelius180]

:eek:Oh NO!!!

NEVER use a debit card for this kind of transaction. If you have any problems, they already have your money. No recourse. Use a regular credit card that you can dispute if something doens't go the right way. Saves a ton of worry as you can see. This explains your problem.

And as you said, they are holding onto YOUR money as they work this mess out. Learn a lesson here. And it's not just using LMT. Debit cards ask for trouble more than any kind of transaction.

 

Good luck! ANd have a great cruise!

 

 

Actually the transaction is covered just like a credit card. You can still dispute unauthorized or fraudulent transactions with your bank.

[BlueHerons]

I think you are being alittle paranoid.

 

I used LMT for $5,000 in hotel fees last January, used a debit card (by accident) and didn't have a single incident.

 

They book a lot of hotel rooms. If they started ripping people off it would be the last of this company.

 

They have everything to lose and nothing to gain by ripping you off for a couple hundred dollars.

 

FWIW, your card was probably declined because most people have single spend limits on a debit card for a single charge.

 

Meaning you can charge $50 ten times but you cannot charge $500 one time.

[eandj]

I just wouldn't like having someone pull money from one of my personal accounts and then say there's some kind of problem, or that a purchase is pending and I'll know in a few days, etc. If using a charge card, no cash has been removed from my accounts. So if there's a problem with a reservation, puchase etc. I don't have to spend time getting my cash back into my bank. I just move on.

 

Just my opinion. I've heard of enough debit card purchase problems and just don't want to have to use my time figuring out why and how to fix things.

 

This doesn't mean LMT is trying anything fishy. Just some hiccup in this case, that will probably be fixed in short order. I've used them in the past a few times with absolutely no trouble. But that was with a credit card.

 

I'm not paranoid. Just a little careful and wise to things that can go wrong.

[jillyfish]

Melissa -

Any updates with your situation?

Also wanted to add, I have used LMT without incident too.