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Hotwire Communications, Ltd.


Country United States
State Pennsylvania
City Bala Cynwyd
Address PO Box 1187
Phone (800) 355-5668
Website https://gethotwired.com

Hotwire Communications, Ltd. Reviews

  • Apr 18, 2022

I attempted to rent a car on 04/04/22 until4/05/22 to travel to IL because my sister had passed away, While attempting to rent the car this ad kept popping up for a special deal for the times I needed to rent the vehicle.

I clicked on the special deal pit in the dates and times I needed to rent it hit submit and the times changed to a time tthat would not be beneficial to me .

I immediately call the compay fior a refund but was told that the sale was final and that I could get credit toward another vehicle. I agreed but when I researched on getting another car the prices had changed to some extranomical amount.

This company need to be brought to justice for their unethical business practices. They change aspect of your needsso that they can automatically say the sale is final this hotwire.com company used the special sale to justify in taking your hard earned cash when they know you want be able to use the product.

  • Dec 19, 2016

I booked a hotel reservation through Hotwire. I chose a hotel for a rate of $61 per night. The summary showed the $61 hotel rate when I hit the "book" button. Immediately after booking this hotel through the Hotwire website, the reservation showed a hotel rate which will be charged to my credit card, of $67.20 per night.

Called customer service, and also sent email, to complain and request a cancelation. Customer service refuses to cancel stating, "all reservations are final." I have saved screen shots showing both the rate I reserved and the rate they charged after I made the reservation.

  • Aug 24, 2016

Once again, money has been stolen from me by Hotwire.com. I booked a reservation using their 'hot rate' feature, and paid $249 for a week at a particular hotel. I called the hotel before I got there to make sure that they had me in the system as this had happened to me before, last year, with Hotwire, at the same hotel, to the tune of $199 a week that time. They confirmed that I was "good to go." When I got there the hotel told me that the reservation they had was from Expedia, not Hotwire, and that it had only taken the credit card number as a "guarantee." So I had to pay for the week again. Lo and behold, when I looked at my bank statement, Hotwire had indeed charged me the full $249 which means that once again, Hotwire has stolen my money and I had to pay twice to make sure I had a roof over my head! This time I've contacted the Better Business Bureau and the FTC with these FRAUD and BREACH OF CONTRACT issues. Hotwire always says they don't refund, but they can be sued for way more than that amount and they'll have to give it back THAT WAY. I need to contact my bank and just say that was a FRAUDULENT charge in that it was for something I, obviously, didn't buy!! This is getting ridiculous. I've been losing more money trying to keep a roof over my head these past two years than ever before! Earlier this year the problem was with AirBNB and a racist host who threw me out of his house with no notice for something I didn't even do, and no refund for time I had paid for which I wasn't going to BE there. What's going on with these companies these days?!!!

  • Jun 16, 2016

Hotwire are crooks. They set me up in a room that was smoking and I called to get it changed. The very rude agent told me I could talk to a supervisor but they would do not more for me than she was doing. I stayed on hold, I am sure hoping I would hang up, for 30 minutes. You never want to use this company. I am still on hold and will be until they come back on the line.

There solution was to give me a refund if I would go ahead and book another room with them. If I refused to book with them they would not give me a refund. Her words not mine. So if you cannot give a customer what they need, and you take their money, you can make them take whatever and expect them to be happy about it.

I told her I cannot stay in a smoking room due to smoking allergies in our family. She did not care and told me this was not a guarantee room and what I got once I booked was what I got. The only things on this room reservation that was not guaratneed was room type or beds. No place in the reservation was I allowed to select no smoking which is why I called the hotel to confirm. I have been on the phone for 1:08.

I just got off the phone after 2 hours with the "supervisor". He was unwilling to move on making me rebook with him. So much for Customer Satisfaction. I am sure the leadership with Hotwire will never call me back as I am sure I am just one of many calls or complaints they get. I am telling anyone who reads this...Do NOt use Hotwire. It will be the worst experience of your life!

This is a terrible company and one that I will never do business with again. If a company cannot provide a service for you, they should apologize and walk away. These people try and make you use them. It is crazy!!!

  • Jun 13, 2016

Booked threw Hotwire because of the good deals. We were going away for Our Wedding Anniversary. We booked a 3.5 Star downtown Ottawa. With 90% customers rating. We went threw with the deal thinking how bad can it be??? Well it was terrible. The actual Hotel reviews Where terrible. Terrible service. Rooms where very dirty breakfast was dissapointing and never enough food. beds are very u comfortable. Bring your pillows ... Bugs!!!! ... So I panicked and called Hotwire and said please help... we just booked can we cancel... we bought the cancellation fee ... but turns out thats just like travel insurance. The guy om the phone was really nice. He said no problem Im sorry that thr reviews arent what you thought... ill help you book another hotel... he gave me a few options told me what hotels and what price and where....

i told him thank you can I call back the next day Id like to review the hotels I dont want to just go ahead and be stuck again.

He said no problem.... I call back the next day explain the situation... and well this gentelman didnt have the same deal for us... he didnt understand why his co-worker was given us these deals he was so rude telling me to take his deal and yelling at me... saying he will lose his job because of me???? When i was just trying to explain Id like the deal from yesterday if possible if not ill take whatever else.... he said you'll have to hold after i told him id like to speak to someone else.... he placed me on hold for 1hr and half....and never came back. We called back 3 times and no one would answer our calls after being om hold each time for over an hour.... Terrible serivce.

  • Jun 13, 2016

My wife's father was scheduled to have cancer surgery on the morning of June 7, 2016. So on June 5, 2016, my wife booked a five night hotel reservation through Hotwire.com, using the phone number on their website. The agent refused to give hotel name or number until the debit card billing was successfully completed. Once that has occurred, the agent gave the information, said an email would be sent to her with the billing information and itinerary number shortly. She was informed that if any problems should occur, to call back Hotwire customer support. My wife specifically requested a smoking room and when she called the hotel number provided, she was informed that it was a no smoking hotel. That is where our nightmare of out-sourced Hotwire customer support began!

She called Hotwire customer support, and was asked for her phone number, name, and email address. After providing them with the information, she was told that they could find no reservation made and that she wasn't even in their system. Upset that she had provided her debit card information, she asked to speak to a supervisor, who transferred her to a credit card specialist, who said nothing was billed to the credit card in their system so she didn't have to worry. This took two hours to complete, mainly being put on hold.

Upon her informing me of that the debit card wasn't charged, I called the debit card authorization company 'Shazam', and was informed that Hotwire had indeed processed a charge in the amount that my wife was told by initial Hotwire booking agent. So we called back Hotwire customer support, and went through the same scripted question to get to a supervisor who asked the same scripted questions, only to be told to call the hotel and see if our reservation had made it to their system yet. So while we had Hotwire on the landline, my wife called the hotel back and was informed there was no reservation. She was transferred to the hotel’s National reservation office, who informed her that there was no record of a reservation for us booked by Hotwire the previous evening. So I demanded to speak to the supervisor's supervisor, and was finally transferred to "Jack", who after quite a bit of time said he found the billing, and would notate that 'upon reception of the funds, Hotwire would reimburse our account' and the money would be back in the account by Wednesday June 8,2016. That was the best that he could do to resolve the problem. So after four hours (June 6, 2016 03:38 am of the day we were supposed to leave) of answering the same questions, we were told we would get our money refunded for the reservation to the wrong hotel that was never made. We were so tired of the hassle, we just said OK. My wife had developed a migraine, and we knew we wouldn't be able to travel until the next day and arrive the evening before my wife's father's surgery.

Having learned our lesson, we did not book the replacement hotel reservation through Hotwire. Upon arriving back home in the late evening of June 11, 2016, I unloaded our vehicle. We unpacked our things, and it wasn’t until about 03:00 June 12, 2016 that I thought I should check our account to see if the Hotwire refund processed as we were promised. I quickly saw that we had been lied to just to get us off the phone by the so-called supervisor and Hotwire had indded charged the account for a reservation that they has repeated told us was never made by their company.

So I called Hotwire to find out why we were not reimbursed. I went through the same scripted questions three times, with three ‘levels’ of supervisors, and was continually told that there is nothing they can do because they have nothing in their system. The last supervisor I spoke to asked me to hold, while she checked on something. 25 minutes later, I hung-up because I was tired and knew I was just being ignored.

I slept a few hours, and called Hotwire customer support again. I was asked what phone was given for the reservation, what was the name the reservation was under, and what email was given for the reservation. I have heard these same scripted questions so many times, I don’t believe that Hotwire customer support even has supervisors to talk to. After another three hours on the phone, I was even transferred to Expidia.com, a sister booking site. After explaining everything, because of course I had to be transferred to a supervisor there, I was transferred right back to Hotwire; where I had to start from the beginning again, answering the same questions, and supposedly being sent up the supervisor ladder.

The last Hotwire customer support supervisor informed me that since they could not find any proof that they had received payment from the debit card in the amount I read right off my account transaction history from my bank; my only option is for me to have the bank dispute the charges with Hotwire.com. My word is not good enough about the number of times, hours spent on the phone, English names for outsourced customer support representatives is not good enough. They do not keep record of the number of times a customer tries to resolve an issue, if they do not have an itinerary number (never emailed), phone number, name, email address, in their system. However, they have no qualms whatsoever, about billing someone not in their system and then denying any existence of the billing.

From researching on the Internet, I have discovered that Hotwire.com has a NO REFUND policy, due to their supposedly lowest rates on reservations. During this whole process, we found we could have received a lower rate using my 100% Disabled Veteran military discount. So I understand that their customer support representatives are trained in denying customer requests for refunds, but to deny a refund request for a reservation to the wrong hotel that was never made is pure fraud.

  • Jun 7, 2016

Made a hotel reservation through Hotwire. I was unable to check in to the hotel due to a lack of personnel at the front desk. After waiting for thirty minutes the receptionist came back then she was unapologetic, rude and unwelcoming. I felt uncomfortable to stay there since it was dirty, unwelcoming and the receptionist said I was "unwelcomed". I called Hotwire immediately asking for a new hotel/ a refund I was on the phone an hour before the representative said they would "give me a call back" which they never did. I called a day later and waited two hours to speak to a supervisor once I did he promised me a full refund then disconnected my call. I called back asking to speak to the same man which they were unable to do. I had to go back and forth with another representative before getting another supervisor that did not know anything about the refund. He ended up refusing the refund and hanging up on me.

  • May 25, 2016

Hello my name is Mahamed Hassan and I am writing in regards to a fraudulent charge to my credit card made by Hotwire.com. I tried to make a purchase of a hotel room using your online site on Saturday may 21. the reservation did not go through and I was receiving a error message so I called into the customer service department and they told me I needed to call a 415 number regarding fraud department saying my card has been blocked from making purchases. On Tuesday may 24 I seen on my account that I was charged for the amount of 144.00 3 times by Hotwire. I decided to call in and find out what happened and get my money back and it was here I received the worst service of my entire life. I was hung up on over 5 times and I was told they couldn't do anything for me by numerous people and transferred back into the que by being told lies about how I was going to be transferred to the right department.

I have never had this much hassle for an error that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with their system and customer service reps inexperience in regards to how to handle situations. I am extremely disappointed and hurt at the fact I had to spend my entire day trying to figure this out and still have not got to a solution. I am writing this in the hopes that this will reach someone who can understand my pain and offer help. Thank you for your time reading this.

  • May 20, 2016

In November of 2014 we signed up with this company for internet service of 1 gig per second of internet service at $1,000 per month.

The highest speed we where ever able to achieve was 519 megs a second. They still tried to hold me to $1,000 a month and were extremely rude about it. After fight with them for months and withholding payment they agreed to $500 a month. However, they did not adjust the monies already owed $768.54, so we have left that as a balance.

We have been paying Fision hotwire commuications our monthly fee every month on time since November of 2014.

Now, in May of 2016, they cut off our service with notice in the middle of a work day, and when we called they said they are not turning it back on until we pay that $768.54

We paid the money and they turned it back on.

We will not be renewing this contract they are liars and are rude and unhelpful.

  • Mar 28, 2016

We are writing this to document our experience with Hotwire in regards to a family holiday we booked with this company for Spring Break.

We booked our holiday on 18 November 2015, after much research to find the best price options for our family of 2 adults and 2 children, ages 12 and 15. We were happy to find an all inclusive resort in Playa Del Carmen from 17-23 March 2016 that met our budget; however we did not know which resort it was until we booked it as Hotwire keeps the name of the resorts hidden. (Supposedly because the prices they offer are lower than everybody else) The Hotwire quoted price was $2407.33. The resort turned out to be the Hacienda Tres Rios Resort. During the booking process, Hotwire only every asked how many children ages 2-17 there were, they never gave us the opportunity to say the exact ages of our children. (Please see the attached screen shots of Hotwire’s web page) Of note, Hotwire does not say on any official receipt the individual guests or ages, only the name of the primary guest.

When we arrived at the hotel in Mexico, we provided our passports and ages of our children. The day after we arrived we received a call from the front desk informing us that we would have to pay an additional amount of 600USD for the 15 year old, as hotel policy for children was 12 and under. We told them that we had booked and paid for the resort fully through Hotwire and they needed to take it up with them. The hotel then informed us that the kids were both declared as being 11 years old. This was not identified by them as a resort fee or an amenities fee, but an actual charge associated with an extra person.

We were very surprised by this and we thought that Hotwire would have been aware of this policy and asked the ages of the children to determine the actual price. Through our discussion with the hotel manager, we were able to obtain a document from the Hotwire booking agency to the hotel booking agency where Hotwire states that the booking is for 2 adults and 2 children ages 11 and 11. We most certainly did not tell Hotwire these ages, but it became apparent that they deliberately told the hotel the children are younger than the hotel policy, to be able to sell the holiday package at the reduced rate. Most certainly, if we knew that our hotel was going to cost an additional 808.69CAD, we would have done more research and selected a different type of holiday!

We first called Hotwire on Friday 18 March and after waiting on hold for approximately 30 minutes, we finally got through to a representative at the call center in the Philippines. The told us that the resort policy they had from the hotel was children were considered under the age of 18 and they would call the hotel directly to sort it out. The representative placed us on hold again and when they returned they told us they got through to the hotel and that we could hang up and they would inform us of the outcome.

The next day we returned to the front desk to ask if it had been sorted by Hotwire and they had no record of receiving any calls from Hotwire at all. We immediately emailed Hotwire to explain the situation again and received a prompt reply, apologizing for our problems and asking us to phone their regular number to discuss their policies. We thought this was odd, as we had already phoned and spent significant time explaining exactly what was happening but it became apparent they did not keep records of previous calls. We tried several times to call the number Hotwire gave us for Customer Care but were now unable to call outside of Mexico from our cell phone and we even had the hotel try but they were not able to get through to Hotwire either. We emailed back with this information and received the exact same email back again with one sentence reworded for our specific issue. It was a clearly a form letter response, where no one really seemed to care about the issue at hand.

We responded again, asking for a direct number for a representative so that we would not have to spend significant time on our holiday on hold again. We also stated that if we were required to pay extra to the hotel, we would be seeking a refund plus informing the Better Business Bureau and local media outlets of the “help” we received from Hotwire. Once we informed them of these things, we got no response at all. We sent the email multiple times, and every time it was ignored. When we tried to call the number provided in the form email from Customer Care, the number was not valid.

We then found the email addresses of the President of Hotwire and the Vice President of Customer Service for Expedia (Expedia owns Hotwire) and forwarded our email to them. Again, no response or acknowledgment.

We were finally forced to have the hotel call through the to American office of Hotwire on 22 March 2016. This call went through at 0930 hrs, and we waited on hold until 1015 hrs. When the call was finally answered, we explained the situation again and asked to speak to a supervisor. We were then put on hold again from 1017 hrs to 1053 hrs. Finally, Cecilia from the Escalation Management Team answered. She first said we declared the ages of both kids to be 11, to which we responded to her saying that was ludicrous and that we would never do that, as their ages are on the passports and as well there is no where on the Hotwire website to specify their ages. After going back and forth with her, she then agreed there was nowhere for us to state the kids ages and it must have been the other agency that takes the booking from them.

She then tried to say that this is an extra charge, like a resort or amenities fee from the hotel and that they state right in the Hotwire policies that they are not responsible for charges like this. (please see a screen shot of their policy.) Their policy states as the guest we are responsible for additional charges: energy fees, convention fees, parking fees and resort fees but nowhere does it say anything about children being charged as adults. When we asked for her email address so that we could follow up with her directly, as we would be seeking legal action, she informed us that she had no email address at all. We ended the call by saying if hotwire did not fix this with the hotel by the time we left the next morning at 4:30 am we would be filing this with the better business bureau as will as taking our story to the media and possibly seeking legal action against hotwire for fraud.

Hotwire never did contact the hotel to correct the situation they created so we are now forced to follow through with what we have said to them numerous times. We have included all the screen shots of Hotwire’s booking site showing nowhere do they ask the specific ages of the children, also screen shots of their booking policies. As well we have included scans of the hotwire confirmations as well as the receipts from the hotel showing the extra charges we had to pay for the 15 year old as well as the email to the hotel from the booking agency stating the kids were 11.

The above is a summery of our experience with Hotwire but we also have more detailed information of our call with Cecilia from hotwire including her agent number.

  • Mar 25, 2016

Hotwired Communications provides notoriously bad internet service to my building in downtown Miami called Vizcayne which has 500 units or so.

The Internet has been spotty for several months, I dealt with it, now that it is down entirely for 1 week. Customer service is quite poor, instead of sending out a technician to fix the problem immediately, they are scheduled to come out 5 days later. Saying they will "reactivate" it remotely, which did not work either.

The contact form for customer support yields no response and no email.

The Hotwired technicians can be seen coming to the building a lot due to the many problems experienced by customers.

The building needs to get a new ISP, Hotwired makes ATT and Comcast look good.

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