Euro fans left to stay in ‘dungeon-like abandoned medical facility’ | UK News
A football fan on a trip to the Euros says Booking.com sent him and his friends to stay at an abandoned medical facility that looked like something out of a horror film.
Glaswegian Rory Bradley, 28, and three mates have travelled to Germany to watch Scotland play in this year’s tournament and spent more than £2,000 on accommodation through the popular hotel booking site.
There were no issues with their first place, but when they arrived in Düren the accommodation was ‘an absolute mess’, said Rory, with ‘one of the beds made out of cardboard’ and ‘held to together with duct tape’. So they phoned Booking.com and asked to be moved.
An agent at the firm arranged alternative accommodation for the group in the middle of the night, so the friends traipsed across the city in the early hours of the morning.
When they arrived they found they had been sent to what Rory described a ‘dungeon’ and something out of a ‘horror film’ – which came complete with an axe.
Posting on Twitter, Rory said it looked like the place was an abandoned medical facility’ as there were ‘hospital beds and industrial equipment lying around the entrance’.
He continued: ‘We made our way into the property and were greeted by more industrial equipment, exposed chemicals, exposed cables and exposed pipes and to top it all off an axe that looked like something out of a murder film.
‘After all of the above within the first 6 feet of the property we made our way through the rest of the gaff and continued to find hazard after hazard including access to a generator room.
‘We got to the other end of the property and there was a serious smell of damp.’
He added that to make the situation even worse, ‘the front door wouldn’t lock’.
Deciding ‘there was absolutely no chance’ they would sleep there, they got back on the phone to Booking.com.
He said that after two hours of calls an agent told them they would have to pay for a new place and invoice Booking.com after.
Rory told the MailOnline: ‘They wanted us to find somewhere and then they would refund us up to £900. But of course the price of accommodation has shot up now.
‘We’re all working class lads. One of my pals has £39 left in his bank account. We don’t have the money to pay for a hotel.’
They managed to find a hostel to stay in until they move onto the next city of their tour, but Rory said the room, which they’re all sharing, cost double the price of the original place they booked.
A spokesperson from Booking.com told the Metro: ‘This is not the experience we would want for anyone booking a stay on our platform and are in touch with the customer, so we can look into what happened and to make sure they are properly supported.’