Tags
Never again! Last week I got an email from a guy in Tel Aviv who was interested in booking a tapas tour for December 5th (yesterday) and said it would be for four people. Sounded good to me, so I sent off the usual information including prices and how to book and waited to hear back.
He got back in touch saying he wanted to book the evening tour and that he’d be staying at the EME Hotel, but that he’d never used Paypal before and wondered if we could just arrange to meet in the lobby at 8pm on the 5th. And well, I’d never done this before – the deal is that people have to send me a 50% non-refundable deposit – but the tapas tour was just four days away and thought what the hell, especially as I really needed the money.
Well, you know what’s coming, don’t you? Yesterday it was bucketing down all day and I stayed inside working on some stuff for a new social media client until about 5 o’clock. Then some grocery shopping had to be done and so off I went with Nog and got totally soaked, feet drenched, coat dripping … when I got home I had to take a hot shower to warm up, but instead of being able to get into my comfy pj’s and curling up in front of the electric fire with the cats I had to get dressed up and go out again. And so I headed back out into the rain and was at the EME Hotel five minutes ahead of the appointed time, and I waited in the lobby as had been planned. And then I waited, and waited some more. The clients never turned up. Half an hour later I checked at the front desk and they told me this person wasn’t even staying there. It totally sucked. And so I sloshed back home through the driving rain, got into my pj’s, made popcorn and opened a bottle of wine…and tried to get over it.
I don’t get it though. Why didn’t they at least cancel? The guy had said they were flying to Spain on the 1st and would be in Seville the afternoon of the 5th. In his last email he said they were all looking forward to a wonderful evening in Sevilla with me. I mean, it was bad enough that I got soaked through twice in one day, and was left waiting in the hotel lobby for half an hour, but I also didn’t get paid! If I’d insisted on the deposit then at least I would have had that. Live and learn, eh?
casa azahar 
Aw shucks. I hope they find out what they are missing and regret it evermore.
LikeLike
ugh. Sorry you had to go through that! Hate that people can be so inconsiderate …
LikeLike
I have had this no-show problem with my property business any number of times. There is damn little one can do but keep setting appointments. Still, it is an insulting waste of time.
LikeLike
Bad news. I miss being free lance but don’t miss being messed about like that.
LikeLike
That bites. I never understand how people can be so rude.
LikeLike
Oh, I do not miss the days when my pop-stand was in a women’s health club and some people thought of me about the same way as the aerobics class that they could attend or not as their schedule allowed.
One day a woman who had booked an appointment came dashing in minutes before her time to say that she just had to, had to take an exercise class instead because of the day she’d had. I just made a mental note never to book her again. Come to find out she lived next door to a friend of mine and her ambitious landscaping and grading project had caused flooding in my friend’s basement, which Miss Broken Appointment refused to do anything about — we detected a clear pattern of no one mattering but Miss BA. My friend consulted some county advisers about ways to deflect the water swamping her property and Miss BA ended up with half her yard under three inches of water. Which is a long way of saying… what goes around comes around. Rough justice is all we can depend on.
LikeLike
My first year teaching English in Salamanca students were always stiffing me by either cancelling at the last minute or even just not showing up. So when I got to Sevilla I started the “pay a month in advance” policy, with the proviso that missed classes could be recuperated if 24-hour’s notice was given. Am thinking of getting the pay in advance thing going for my social media clients too…
LikeLike
Definitely a good idea considering the hours you put in. At least they can only screw me up a half hour or hour at a time, you could put in days and then wait for days for them to pony up.
LikeLike
Ugh. Uncool and a half. TBH, though, I would have told him that PayPal is easy enough to use so suck it up and get an account, man. Sorry you had to go through that, Az. 😦
LikeLike
That’s the thing – you don’t even need a Paypal account to use Paypal. You can safely use your credit card – no problem. Wanker.
LikeLike
Although I should say that for some reason I never* could use Paypal with either of my cards. But I have an account now, which was easier than I had thought (shame on me).
* well, once. Which makes it even weirder.
LikeLike
it shows that your payment rule made sense…what a drag.
LikeLike
Yep, and I will never make any exceptions in future.
LikeLike
Not cool but is there a possibility he’s sitting in an airport in Tel Aviv waiting for the chaos from the Spanish Air Controllers strike to clear?
If so, possibly canceling Tapas Tours might not have been the first thing on his mind.
LikeLike
I thought of that and even sent him an email on Saturday to ask if he’d been affected by the strike – didn’t hear back, but thought that while on holiday he might not be checking his email.
Then I checked back through our emails and on November 30th he wrote “we will fly to spain tomorrow night, arrive in Seville afternoon of 5.12”. So even allowing for stopovers they should have got here by Thursday, a full day before the strike began.
LikeLike
Unfortunately, along with most people, we’ve also learned similar lessons from thoughtless or unscrupulous people – usually strangers but sometimes acquaintances or even “friends”. I used to be very trusting but am much more cynical – realistic? – now!
LikeLike
Well, unlike you, I’ve never trusted anybody ever! 😉
I knew I was taking a risk this time, and it just proved that I shouldn’t have. So I won’t again.
LikeLike
At least he wasn’t just getting you out of your house in order to burgle it (Always Look On The Bright . . .)
LikeLike
Hey you! Haven’t seen you around in ages.
Heh, any burglars coming here would have found Nog and both cats at home. And anyhow, I don’t have anything to burgle. All my precious belongings (iPhone, camera, etc) go with me at all times.
LikeLike
It really sucks. Sorry, az. *hug* Look on the bright side: I take it you didn’t miss out on another booking for the same time because of this.
LikeLike
You have to wonder why anyone would get pleasure out of duping another person. I guess the lesson is…always take the deposit, no matter what.
LikeLike