JR R.

In May 2021, I booked a room at the Aloft Hotel in Denver for a one-night stay on June 25th. I was aware in advance that the charge through Booking.com was non-cancellable and non-refundable. After a long flight from Honolulu, I arrived at 10 PM and hailed an Uber to take me to Aloft. Upon arrival at the hotel, I stood in line behind a woman and her two young children as the desk clerk informed her that the hotel had double-booked its rooms and that she was out of luck. She was visibly upset.

However, since I had booked and paid for my hotel room weeks earlier, I was confident that my accommodations were still available. I was wrong. In fact, Aloft had double-sold more than 30 rooms. The hotel had my reservation on file but simply sold it online twice.

I called Booking.com. In the email reply from the Help Desk, Booking.com tried to deflect responsibility by saying it was unaware of the double-booking. However, I paid Bookinc.com and the charge was non-refundable, ergo, Booking.com is the responsible party.

Booking.com makes it difficult to reach customer support, but I was eventually able to get through to a call center in Singapore. The only reason I have given Booking.com any stars at all is that the woman in Singapore seemed to genuinely be trying to help me. At just after 2AM, she was able to find me another hotel room about 9 miles away, but because I could not get Uber or Lyft to pick me up at that late hour, I ended up staying up all night in the lobby of Aloft. I had two early morning business meetings that I attended after being up all night with no shower or shave.

Booking.com sent an email advising that they would refund my account and pay for my Uber. One week after requesting that reimbursement I have heard nothing back.

I will plan to share my story about Booking.com and Aloft as much as possible on social media and in reviews.

Last week was my oldest son's 18th birthday - the age at which he can legally open a bank account. Since I am a financial planner, I wanted to send him off into adulthood on the right foot by establishing his own bank account, investment account, and credit card. Our first step was a visit to the Ally Bank website, where I intended to have him establish a money market fund that he may use when he goes off to college in the Fall. Our plan was to then establish an Ally credit card that he could link, along with his bank account, to his newly established Acorns account. I planned to fund the Ally account with a check that he would scan in from his iPhone.

He completed the Ally money market account online in about five minutes and hit the submit button. To our surprise, he received a notice that the account was subject to review and that he would receive a response in 2-3 days. We called customer service to find out if this was normal and were informed that the application was just randomly flagged for review. Okay, so we wait a few days. No big deal.

Yesterday, my son received an email notification with a reference number and instructions to call a toll free Ally customer service number. When we called, the customer service rep advised that there was some information on his application that did not seem accurate, but that he was not authorized to disclose what information was missing or causing the problem. He said that to verify the accuracy of the information on the account, my son must now provide a copy of his driver's license and a copy of his social security card to Ally Bank.

While I have no problem providing a copy of a driver's license to comply with the Patriot Act (most states no longer include social security numbers on driver's licenses), there is absolutely no way my son will be mailing his social security card to Ally Bank or any other financial institution. It is shocking in this day and age that Ally would make such a request. Ally already has my son's social security number on the online application he submitted. Honestly, if we had not just applied on Sunday, I would have thought that this was a phishing scam.

As a postscript, I checked online to see if other users had similar issues with Ally Bank. I have found that there are many applicants who have had the exact same experience. There are also many complaints about Ally being both overly zealous in unnecessarily requesting delivery of applicants' social security numbers and about Ally being careless in the treatment of such extremely sensitive, confidential personal data.

This has indeed been an excellent personal finance learning experience for my son, and for me! Two lessons I am now sharing with everyone - (1) do not do business with companies that request you to provide your social security card via mail or unencrypted email, and (2) AVOID Ally Bank.