Ripped off by capetownvillas.net

Foreign tourists beware of some web sites charging ridiculous commission fees. I am from the UK and decided spend ten days on vacation with my family in Cape Town. We booked a villa through capetownvillas.net. They charged us R55 000 upfront for the villa. When we arrived in Cape Town the villa pool was being repaired and we felt that it was better to move to another villa because of the safety for the kids.

The villa home owner assisted us on finding another villa in the area by going to capetown-direct.com, which is a commission free website. We found a great villa nearby. This is when we discovered that we had been ripped off. The villa owner transferred his portion of our booking amounting R38 000 to the new villa owner, and we had to battle to get Cape Town villas to hand back the R 17 000 commission which they had charged. Cape Town Villas insists that they only charge 15% which is the industry standard, well as you can see this is a big lie, they charged us 32% commission. This is not good for business and tourism in Cape Town, ripping off foreign tourists.

On the date of our arrival Cape town villas did not even bother sending an agent to meet us or check us into the villa, meeting and checking in the clients is normal procedure.

Cape town is a wonderful vacation destination, just be wary of web sites that charge large amounts of commission. I was furious when I found out that i was ripped off by Cape Town villas, also upset because they had not bothered to meet and check me in. What a cheek demanding R19000 for answering a email. I intend exposing this company in the Argus for ripping off tourists with ridiculous commission.