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Expedia 'fined' for duping clients

Internet holiday giant ‘fined’ €427,000 for giving false information on hotel availability and misleading bargain-hunters

INTERNET holiday site Expedia has been ordered to pay €427,000 to French hoteliers after being found guilty of a series of “false price reductions”, “false prices for hotels” and “false information on hotel availability”.

The world’s No1 internet travel agency – which also includes travel advice site Tripadvisor.fr and hotel booking site hotels.com – was condemned by the Tribunal de Commerce de Paris for misleading customers and ordered to pay the money as damages.

It must pay €305,000 to the hoteliers federation Synhorcat and the rest to two hotels which sparked the initial complaint: €79,000 to the Hôtel de la Place du Louvre in Paris and €43,000 to the Château Guilguiffin, in Landudec, Finistère.

Expedia was investigated by the anti-fraud agency DGCCRF who found that internet bargain-hunters had been misled by the American-based sites. Buyers were given information that certain hotels were full and were directed towards other hotels with whom Expedia and Hotels.com had commercial links.

Tourism minister Frédéric Lefebvre, who launched the DGCCRF investigation in May, said: “Nearly 60% of French internet users exclusively use the web for preparing and buying their travel needs. The accuracy of the information provided by these sites is, therefore, vital.”

Synhorcat greeted the tribunal’s decision as a “victory for consumers and hotel professionals” and hoped it would lead to a new morality in the e-commerce sector.

It also denounced the Expedia sites for their confusion of marketing tactics with Tripadvisor seeming to be an advice site while it was also directing bargain-hunters to its own sister companies.

Synhorcat president Didier Chenet has called on the companies to meet to straighten out the situation and what he called “abuses” in contracts. If not, he said, the federation would again take Expedia to the tribunal.

Related stories:
Fraud probe into web hotel bookings
SNCF fined €5m over travel site

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