One thing I discovered about Agoda’s hotel booking system that shocked me
This is a long post about what I feel are gaps in Agoda’s Know-Your-Customer (KYC) practices to prevent potential fraud and abuses on their hotel booking platform. For those who don’t know what KYC practices are, I will explain them later in this post. For those interested, I advice you to read this on your desktop and take things slowly. I will cover quite a bit of stuff in this post.
I made these discoveries after facing some bad experiences from my Agoda hotel bookings. While I did not get scammed or receive any physical harm, my experience on the Agoda suggest to me some loopholes that bad actors can potentially exploit. I will share why I feel Agoda can do better to protect its consumers, and also share some measures people can do if they still want to book hotels through Agoda.
A bit on my professional experience that I feel is relevant to this post. I worked for two years in Grab’s Trust and Safety team as their Senior Data Analyst, where I primarily dealt with fraud in its transport service. My work at Grab allowed me to see how fraudulent and undesirable behaviour can happen on marketplace platforms. While marketplace platforms are out to reduce asymmetric information between buyers and sellers of a service or a product, the platform itself has some duty to prevent certain negative behaviour from both buyers and sellers.
I assume the Vietnam hotels I interacted with on Agoda had no malicious intent, as I did not get scammed out of any money. However, having to scramble to cancel and book another hotel within a short period of time added a bit of stress to my trip. I felt Agoda could have done more to prevent such things from happening. Other than some message about how they will get back to me, I decided to just cancel my booking on my end, which maybe caused Agoda to just drop my case thereafter.
Lastly, this post is published only after I have completed my Vietnam trip for obvious safety reasons.
My Agoda experience
In October 2022, I booked a hotel called “Sap by Connek” on Agoda. Me and my girlfriend checked the standard stuff regarding this hotel, such as its rating and reviews, and we felt good about the hotel.
Unfortunately, on the morning of 2nd December, 2022, I got a message from my Agoda hotel’s booking (not Agoda itself), asking me to cancel my booking, as the hotel claim it cannot service my booking anymore.
I was puzzled by the message because the hotel contacting me through my booking is now called “Hotel Emerald Waters Classy”, instead of “Sap by Connek”. I never remember booking a room with “Hotel Emerald Waters Classy”, although I did question both my memory and sanity a few times while retracing my memory. After some time, I realised the hotel I booked changed its name from “Sap by Connek” to “Hotel Emerald Waters Classy”! Hence, “Hotel Emerald Waters Classy” was able to message me using my booking to the account they inherited from “Sap by Connek”.
Know-Your-Customer (KYC)
At this point, let me explain the concept of Know-Your-Customer (KYC), and in particular, in the context of dealing with bad behaviour on platforms. KYC is the process where platforms register and capture information about their users to ensure that the users are who they say they are. Platforms usually have incentives to know who their customers are, although this at times is done at great costs to the platform and its users (eg, adding friction to their user signup flow).
For example, if a platform is giving new users financial incentives to sign up a new account, it would want to ensure that a single user isn’t creating multiple new accounts to gain the financial incentives for themselves. Crypto exchange platforms typically have strict KYC processes to comply with financial regulatory rules against money laundering. Ride-hailing platforms also have incentives to ensure that their drivers are who they are. If a driver is constantly flagged by multiple passengers for risky or inappropriate behaviour, the platform will most like have certain enforcement practices (education, suspension, etc) to reduce or remove such bad experiences on their platform.
Back to my Agoda situation, I was first confused why Agoda allowed the hotel to change their name. Further research from me confirmed that “Hotel Emerald Waters Classy” has the same address as the hotel that I previously booked, “Sap by Connek”. The person who messaged me through my now “Hotel Emerald Water Classy” booking further claimed the hotel is going through a rebranding exercise and hence, cannot fulfil my booking any more.
Further Exploration
I felt the story did not add up. Firstly, if “Hotel Emerald Water Classy’’ is a new hotel, I would assume it should not have many (or any) reviews. However, I saw that “Hotel Emerald Water Classy’’ has over 1000+ reviews on Agoda!
Digging further into their reviews, I found reviews written for another hotel called “Essence Palace” and “Sap by Connek”
I realise many, if not all of the reviews, could not be for “Hotel Emerald Water Classy”. It was now that I also realised the url of this hotel listing has “Essence Palace” in it (see the url on top of Fig 7 & 8)! Not “Hotel Emerald Water Classy”, nor “Sap by Connek”! Assuming that the url was created at the point of the hotel booking listing creation on Agoda, I am inferring that the original hotel listing was “Essence Palace”! I am also inferring that this hotel profile has changed at least twice since the creation of this booking listing on Agoda, from “Essence Palace” to “Sap by Connek” and now to “Hotel Emerald Waters Classy”.
A few questions popped up in my head. If the owners have changed with the rebranding exercise, how can Agoda allow the new hotel owner to keep reviews from the past hotels, without at least indicating that the reviews was for a different hotel? If I am another user who arrived at “Hotel Emerald Water Classy” on Agoda and didn’t dig deeper into the reviews, I will naturally assume those reviews were for “Hotel Emerald Water Classy”, when they were not ! How can Agoda let hotels use positive reviews of previous hotels, which would wrongly convince users that this new hotel is a legit, quality hotel?
On the other hand, if the original owners have remained, does Agoda have any way to verify and reassure their users that the rebranded hotel is still owned by the same owner who can rightfully keep their positive reviews? And personally, I am curious why the hotel is then not fulfilling my hotel booking then if it is just a rebrand? This could be the hotel owners gaming the Agoda’s hotel system, but I am not very sure about this.
Findings so far
So far, this is what I found out about Agoda’s hotel booking system:
- Agoda allows hotels to change their hotel names and hotel ownerships on the same hotel listing.
- Hotels don’t need to inform users about any hotel ownership change.
- The new hotel can inherit the reviews of the past hotels.
These findings already shaken my confidence in Agoda, but I decided to do more research, and this is what I found:
- I took a deeper look at the Agoda’s profile for “Hotel Emerald Water Classy”, and I realise they are taking bookings for the slots that I booked at a 400% price increase, from 40 SGD to 174 SGD. One speculation I have is that after taking over from “Sap by Connek”, “Hotel Emerald Waters Classy” felt that they could earn more by asking me to cancel my bookings to free up rooms that they can charge at a higher price.
- I also googled “Sap by Connek”, and I found what seems to be their own website. The website, however, has a different address from what was previously posted on Agoda. Maybe their website has their an old or new address, but “Sap by Connek” did seem (or used) to exist, but it doesn’t seem to be taking bookings even on their own website now.
- I also found another listing on Agoda called “Sap by Connek” that has much less reviews, is using a similar address from “Hotel Emerald Water Classy” (with some small changes), but does not seem to be taking bookings as well.
- I also realise quite a few hotels on Agoda in Hanoi are showing this pattern, where the hotel name found in the url does not match with the title of the Agoda listing. I am assuming this means the original hotel profile created has been changed. And naturally, I am questioning if these hotels own all the reviews on their booking page.
- I was not able to do more research to see if this issue is only happening in Hanoi, but to be fair to Agoda, I did find this listing on Trip.com, which was a booking listing with “Sap by Connek” in its url but“Hotel Emerald Waters Classy” as its name.
Agoda KYC process
When discussing my situation with my friend, we found the Agoda KYC process online. So apparently, with written consent and documentation, a new hotel owner can officially take over a current Agoda hotel listing. While I am not knowledgeable about the hotel industry, I understand there could be instances this workflow can allow a new hotel to quickly ramp up their booking efforts on Agoda.
However, my question remains as to why Agoda thinks it is ok for the new hotel owner to inherit the positive reviews of the past hotel? Does anyone have any assurance that the quality of the hotel remains after the ownership transfer? Minimally, I would expect Agoda to indicate a change of hotel ownership somewhere in the listing. I am not surprised if many users just look at a hotel, see the hotel’s average ratings, maybe quickly read a few reviews, and then make their booking based on these numbers, which unfortunately are reviews that do not belong to the new hotel at all!
In addition, reading the clauses for the hotel ownership change on Agoda, the new owner is also supposed to fulfil their current booking obligations, which of course they did not for me.
All bookings should be honored by the new/old management as all Agoda bookings are instantly confirmed.
This goes back to my speculation that the hotel wants to free up my room booking so that he can charge other users more money. As I had a free cancellation booking, the new hotel owner may feel that the chances of them getting into trouble with Agoda is very low, since I would not lose any money from my cancellation. Illegal? Maybe not. Unethical? Maybe. A bad experience on Agoda? Definitely.
Why is hotel KYC so important?
We live in a scary world, and we require certain accurate information to make certain informed decisions:
- In the worst scenario, if I booked a hotel that just got taken over by a malicious actor, he could potentially direct me to a dangerous place to kidnap, rob me, or cause me real physical harm. I am literally thinking about the recent Cambodia scam syndicate.
- In a less dire situation, I might be told that my booking was void when I arrive at my destination hotel, and get extorted for more money to secure a place to stay in the foreign land that I am already in. This would definitely be a stressful situation that would make a bad start to my vacation too.
- In other instances, I could end up having a bad hotel experience that does not match with the positive reviews I saw on Agoda, because those reviews were not for the hotel that I booked for. This naturally isn’t a great situation to face as well.
While I am glad that none of these situations happened to me, having to cancel and rebook my hotel bookings towards the start of my trip was not the experience I was looking to have with Agoda. I can empathise that COVID has hit the tourism sector hard, and it is normal for hotels to change owners due to financial difficulties. However, I felt that Agoda could to either remove reviews of past hotels for the new hotel owner, or at least indicate on their hotel listing that there has been a change of hotel ownership to allow us consumers to make more informed decisions.
Possible mitigating steps for consumers
I now see Agoda hotel reviews with a pinch of salt, and I hope more friends realise this. I re-emphasise that I did not get scammed, but I did receive a really bad user experience from Agoda. I personally wouldn’t trust Agoda in the near future (recency bias), but for those still keen to book with Agoda, consider the following:
- Understand that hotels on Agoda may own reviews from the hotel that they inherited the bookings page from, and Agoda enables this.
- Check that the hotel url names are the same as their hotel names. These urls are most probably created at the point of the hotel listing creation, and hence, cannot be altered even if the hotel names have been changed. If the url name and hotel name do not match, it does not mean that there is definitely some fraud happening, but be wary that the reviews of the hotel you are looking at may not be for the hotel you are hoping to book.
- This url information wouldn’t be present if you are booking through the Agoda app, so consider checking the hotel listing on the Agoda website if you are concerned.
- Check other sites like Tripadvisor to see if there are relevant hotel reviews of the hotel that you hope to book. Tripadvisor may be a bit more neutral, but this is just to reduce the risks.
- You can also check if the hotel reviews include other hotel names. It was such reviews that made me realise the reviews I was reading were not for the hotel that I booked. This however depends on past reviewers putting their hotel names in their reviews, which is something I never thought of doing myself.
- Lastly, if you are reviewing your hotel experience, do explicitly include your hotel name in your review, so as to ensure that readers know what hotel your review is for. I see this as a pay-it-forward step in trying to reduce such situations of other hotels owning previous hotel reviews. This is definitely something I would do moving forward, for any product / hotel / service review that I will do.
Conclusion
Many users depend on aggregator websites to decide on the purchase of a service or product. Consumers already face a barrage of information online, from purchased fake reviews to online smear campaigns. Now that I realise Agoda allows new hotels to own the reviews of their previous hotels, I do feel I lost quite a bit of trust in Agoda.
All this said, my trip to Hanoi still happened. I am glad to say that me and my girlfriend had a great time in Sapa (less so in Hanoi). We also booked our hotel on another travel website, but not before sourcing through reviews across Google, Tripadvisor, and a multitude of other travel website aggregators to ensure the validity of the hotel we were booking. The hotel we finally booked had a Tripadvisor review with photos of the reviewer and hotel staff in it.
References
I had to do quite a bit of research for this piece, and I am including some references on the things that I have found. As the Internet landscape constantly changes, these links may not always be available moving forward, especially if the hotel owners or Agoda decides to make certain changes.
- Url of my original hotel booking
- Website on Agoda new owner rule information
- Unknown new Sap by Connek on Agoda
- Sap by Connek google info
- Sap by Connek’s official website
- Sap by Connek on Traveloka
- Emerald Water Classy Hotel on Agoda
- Emerald Water Classy Hotel on Booking
- Emerald listing with Sap details — Note that this may get updated in the future
These are some of the hotel listings on Agoda that I found, where their url names don’t match with the listing’s hotel names
- https://www.agoda.com/en-gb/delicacy-central-hotel-spa/hotel/hanoi-vn.html
- https://www.agoda.com/en-gb/mosto-hanoi-hotel/hotel/hanoi-vn.html
- https://www.agoda.com/en-gb/spring-flower-hotel/hotel/hanoi-vn.html
- https://www.agoda.com/en-gb/hanoi-vacanza-premier-hotel/hotel/hanoi-vn.html
- https://www.agoda.com/en-gb/peridot-grand-hotel-and-spa-by-aira/hotel/hanoi-vn.html
