Moving into an apartment? The platform pays three times the room fee as compensation, and book a hotel online. Lawyer Huang Wende and hotel

On August 19th, lawyer Huang Wende published an article stating that he had discovered on a business trip on September 6th, 2022 that the hotel he had booked had become a high-rise apartment, which was not in line with reality. After nearly a year of complaints and lawsuits, he finally received three times the compensation and apology from the platform on the eve of the recent court hearing.

On the 20th, the party involved, Huang Wende, introduced to Red Star News reporters that as a consumer and also a lawyer, he insists on safeguarding his rights and hopes that online platforms can fully protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers in accordance with the law, so that the laws in books can be truly implemented. As for the "1200 yuan triple compensation" that the public is more concerned about, Huang Wende decided to donate it.

Staying in a hotel but becoming an apartment?

Lawyers complain first and then sue

On August 20th, Red Star News contacted Huang Wende. He stated that on the evening of September 6, 2022, at around 11 o'clock, when he went to check in at the booked Zhejiang Ferris Wheel Hotel in Jiangsu, he found that the location of the hotel was not easy to find. "The building image displayed online is not the hotel facade, the actual hotel is just an apartment."

▲ Order and hotel page images provided by Huang Wende

Huang Wende believes that there is a significant gap between the room environment and psychological expectations, and the check-in experience is very poor. "The actual room is an apartment located in an office building, where many residents live." Huang Wende explained that his expected check-in situation was to register at the front desk and then go directly to the room to rest. But the actual situation is that the hotel is a self-service apartment and there is no front desk to provide assistance. Subsequently, he found the room based on the prompts provided by the staff on WeChat. Because the incident occurred relatively late, he was also unable to check out. "No one handed over to me, so I directly collected my room card according to the location prompted by him."

Afterwards, he found out that the real name of the apartment he stayed in was "Jingkou District Ferris Wheel Hotel", which did not match the name displayed online as "Zhenjiang Ferris Wheel Hotel", and the room he provided was not the 26th floor room he operated. Huang Wende believes that the apartment operates under the name of a hotel and does not provide hotel accommodation services under its real name. In addition, the hotel rooms provided do not match the registered address of the business registration, and "it is suspected of consumption fraud."

Subsequently, he reported the hotel's involvement in consumer fraud issues to the Suzhou Industrial Park Market Supervision Administration, where the Tongcheng network platform is located, and then filed an administrative review. After no results were achieved, Huang Wende filed an administrative lawsuit and listed the Tongcheng Network Platform as a third party, hoping that the Suzhou Industrial Park Market Supervision Administration could file a case for handling the illegal behavior reported by Tongcheng Network Technology Co., Ltd. within a specified time limit.

▲ Administrative Litigation Review Results of Suzhou Industrial Park Market Supervision Administration

As a legal practitioner, Huang Wende told Red Star News reporters that the online platform has signed an agreement with the apartment, and the responsible party should be the online platform.

Huang Wende believes that online platforms have an obligation to review and cannot shift responsibility onto hotels on the grounds that the information provided by hotels is not true. In addition, legally speaking, according to the relativity of the contract, the subject of the dispute with oneself is the online platform, so it is necessary for the online platform to pursue the responsibility of the hotel.

Tongcheng claimed to have promptly taken down the hotel

Under court coordination, willing to pay triple compensation

On April 7, 2023, the third-party Tongcheng Network claimed in the administrative litigation defense that the hotel reservation information was basically consistent with the actual operation and business license information of the hotel, and there was no exaggeration or false description; After learning about the actual situation of the hotel, the plaintiff checked in normally and received hotel services without any concealment or misunderstanding. After leaving the hotel, the plaintiff reported that the reservation information was different from the actual situation. The defendant promptly logged out of the hotel based on the plaintiff's feedback. Tongcheng Network has never engaged in any fraudulent behavior against the plaintiff during the process of providing services to the plaintiff.

In addition, Tongcheng Network stated that after receiving feedback from Huang Wende, the company has been actively communicating with him and hopes to resolve the issue as soon as possible to avoid escalation. After multiple communications with Huang Wende, Tongcheng Network agreed to refund the plaintiff the actual order amount of 392 yuan, but Huang Wende did not agree to the plan.

After 11 months of tugging and tugging, on the day before the trial on August 17, 2023, Tongcheng Network conveyed its willingness to seek reconciliation to Huang Wende through the court, willing to pay him three times the compensation for the room fee. After the administrative dispute involved was substantially resolved, both parties signed a settlement agreement and applied to the court for administrative withdrawal.

The agreement states, "The second party, as a third party in the case, stated that due to the platform supplier's lax hotel review, the first party had a poor living experience. In the future, the platform will strengthen its supervision and supervision of the supplier to avoid similar situations from happening again. We apologize to the first party and agree to compensate them 1200 yuan."

On August 20, 2023, a Red Star News reporter logged into Tongcheng Travel to search for "Zhenjiang Ferris Wheel Hotel" and found no relevant search results. However, they found a store called "Zhenjiang Ferris Wheel Hotel Apartment". After location comparison, it was found to be a hotel that Huang Wende had previously ordered. At this point, the incident of accommodation not matching the display on the online platform has come to an end.

▲ Now the reporter has found on the same travel platform that the hotel has been replaced with an apartment

The phenomenon of inconsistency between the internet and physical objects is not uncommon

The parties involved claim to donate the compensation

The litigation materials provided by the defendant and third parties show that in response to the customer's mention of hotel licenses and the fact that the product is an apartment, it was verified that the product was launched in November 2019. However, due to the employee's lack of familiarity with business, the relevant information of the product was not verified. "This indicates that other consumers have also stepped on this' pit '," Huang Wende said.

As a consumer and lawyer, Huang Wende stated that he has been persistently defending his rights for nearly a year, hoping that online platforms can fully protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers in accordance with the law, and truly implement the laws in books. As for the "1200 yuan triple compensation" that the public is more concerned about, Huang Wende decided to donate it.

▲ Three times the compensation received by the parties recently

Huang Wende said that this is the first time he has encountered a situation where the accommodation hotel does not match the platform display. Hotels, platforms, and consumers all know that the cost of rights protection is very high. "After truly safeguarding their rights, court staff also revealed that such situations were common when presiding over the settlement, expressing understanding of consumers' rights protection."

Red Star News reporter Cai Xiaoyi intern Huang Kaiting