Lmac M.

I booked to rent a car as the site guaranteed "cancel protection", which was specified as no charge for cancellation up until 48 hours of picking up the rental. I thought it was worth going through the trouble of booking as not to miss the low cost deal.
I looked for feedback online and found on 4 star reviews on Google. How wrong they were!
Two weeks before pickup I decided to cancel the booking. To begin with, it was really hard to find where to effectuate this process on their site. It says they only process cancellation when you write to *******@bookinggroup.com.
They did reply fast, but that doesn't make them any less crooked! I demanded a full cancellation free of charge as was originally sold to me. They replied by sending me a policy different to the original which was on their site when I booked, specifically at the term that specifies how cancellation will or not be charged.
Here are the original terms on their site:

4. 1. 1. When canceling at least 48 hours in advance of your rental, EconomyBookings.com does not collect cancellation fee. Prepayment sum charged upon confirmation is refunded within 45 business days of the cancellation date.
4. 1. 2. When canceling less than 48 hours in advance of your rental, EconomyBookings.com charges 33 USD/37 CAD. The remaining amount is refunded within 45 business days of the cancellation date.

Here, the "revised" terms after I tried cancellation:

4. 1. 1. When canceling at least 48 hours in advance of your rental, administration charge of EUR 25/USD 33 is not refundable. If prepayment sum charged upon confirmation is greater than that, the rest balance will be refunded within 45 business days of the cancellation date.
4. 1. 2. When canceling less than 48 hours in advance of your rental, charge of the full prepayment amount is not refundable. The cost of Refundable Excess and Full Excess Protection extras will be refunded in full within 45 business days of the cancellation date.

Next, they (bookinggroup), replied saying they wouldn't charge me anything, but "economybookings" would charge me US$33.00 for cancelling (as if they weren't one and the same company). After I replied saying that I still demanded not to be charged because I had all the proofs that I was not due to pay any amount, they said I did not have the "cancel protection". Again, I have proof that I have cancel protection up until 48 hours of picking up the car - I have screen printed every page of the booking process showing this.
From that reply, I decided to block the payment in my credit card. I contacted my bank and to my horror I found out that I had already been charged US$176.51 from bookinggroup - US$9.42 dollars more than the full amount of the rental! Supposedly I had cancel protection up until 48 hours of pick up, so then surely this transaction was not to have taken place yet! I have obviously been a victim of an internet scam and I cannot believe that I had not read the full reviews. I would never have been in this position if I wasn't fooled by Google's "oracle" power of quickly showing me 4 star reviews for this scamming company, and I had actually opened up all the review sites and seen the real customers feedbacks.
I plead to everyone reading this DO NOT USE THIS SITE, avoid being a victim of these thieves!