The Priceline Group Inc.—owner of the popular travel booking website priceline.com— faces a potential class action lawsuit that alleges the company collects “taxes and fees” for reservations but does not return those fees to customers in the event that the reservations are not used.
Priceline customers can reserve hotel rooms, airfare, rental vehicles, vacation packages, and cruises. In particular, the Priceline unreturned fee class action lawsuit notes the “Name Your Own Price” feature of the website, which allows users to make an offer on a item, such as a hotel room, which Priceline then submits to various companies in the location chosen by the consumer. If accepted by one of those companies, Priceline charges the consumer that price, as well as “taxes and fees.”
“Priceline Group, in charging ‘taxes and fees’ for a rental or purchase transactions that did not complete, violated various local, state and federal laws regarding the charge and collection of taxes,” according to the Priceline class action lawsuit.
Plaintiff Richard Laquer asserts that he reserved a rental car in San Francisco through the Priceline “Name Your Own Price” feature. He named a price of $35, which was accepted, and he was charged an additional $19.05 for “taxes and fees” by Priceline. Laquer claims that he did not use that reservation, and the charges were not returned to him, even though the $19.05 was never used to pay taxes on the incomplete sale.
The Priceline class action lawsuit argues that when the company charges taxes and fees, Priceline is telling customers that those fees are necessary for the transaction to be completed.
However, “Priceline Group knew when these representations were made, or made them as a positive assertion recklessly, that it would not pay the ‘taxes and fees’ it collected from plaintiff and the putative class members to the various federal, state and local taxing authorities in the event the rental or purchase was not completed,” according to the unreturned fee class action.
This is not the only class action lawsuit Priceline faces regarding its “Name Your Own Price” feature. In July of 2015, a class action was filed alleging that Priceline intentionally hides fees from consumers, making the true price more than the consumer is willing to pay. The allegations of that class action lawsuit, specifically about hidden resort fees, are separate from this complaint.
The Priceline unreturned fees class action lawsuit seeks to represent a class of “thousands of customers of Priceline Group who reserved and paid for motor vehicles, hotels or air travel online through the Name Your Price option – and other nonrefundable reservation options – and did not use the reservation.”
Laquer asks for restitution “in an amount greater than $5 million” for all the taxes and fees collected by Priceline for unused reservations, as well as punitive damages in excess of $75,000.
The plaintiff is represented by Larry A. Tawwater and Darren M. Tawwater of the Tawwater Law Firm, PLLC.
The Priceline Unreturned Fees Class Action Lawsuit is Richard Laquer v. The Priceline Group, Inc., Case No. CIV-16-15-HE, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.
UPDATE: On Aug. 26, 2016, Priceline filed a motion to dismiss the class action lawsuit stating that the taxes and fees are clearly represented as nonrefundable to customers at the time they make the reservation.
UPDATE 2: On Sept. 19, 2016, Laquer argued that he should have standing in this class action lawsuit because he is not seeking to enforce the tax on Priceline, only to obtain a refund for taxes Priceline did not pay to the government.
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68 thoughts onPriceline Hit With Unreturned Fees Class Action Lawsuit
I used Price line to book a rental car for our trip to Florida. They assured me that the vehicle would be at the airport, but it was not. There was no car or shuttle, so I had to find another rental after already being charged $156+. I called the phone number and got nothing. So with all the fees between both rentals we paid close to $600. I will never use Price line again. Very disappointed.
Booked and billed by Priceline for approx. $500 hotel in Japan. Arrived in Japan and we were told that our reservation was cancelled. We had to scramble to get another accommodation. We get back to the US and I called Priceline for a refund. I’ve made 3 attempts now: phone and 2 emails. So far, no luck! Anyone out there who can help us, please!? This was a big financial loss for us.
Priceline.com are thieves. Don’t ever use their services. You will get a much better price and service if you go the through the hotel directly. I booked a hotel through Priceline that I thought was costing $289 plus tax for one night. My stay was supposed to be on 9/29/25, over 8 months away). After I booked it, I realized that the total was over $422. Apparently, they added an additional $122 service charge to it. When I realized what they did, I canceled the reservation (less than 2 minutes after I booked it). The fee for canceling the reservation was $422, so they refused to refund me my money. After hearing back from them about their refusal to refund my money, I asked them to just reverse the cancellation. I told them for that kind of money, I might as well take the room…. at least I would only lose $122, not the entire $422. They told me that they could not reverse the cancellation. On top of it, they said that it was the hotel’s rules and that the hotel received the money. I called the hotel and they have no record of the reservation. I don’t know why anyone would use Priceline.com. They don’t have the best prices, they charge an excessive service charge, and they don’t give full refunds on cancellations.
My flight was canceled, and Priceline refused to refund my $310. The customer service representative told me she had to email her travel partners and that it would take 24 hours for a response. It’s been more than five days, and of course, I haven’t heard anything.
Priceline abates tax consumer law
I reserved 2 rooms for a business trip at the posted rate of $137/room/nite. I did so at the hotel website (Hampton Inn). After talking with the hotel, they indicated that Priceline likely hijacked the site when I was ported to them. Long story short, on top of the room charges that included tax and fees, I was charged an additional $294.22 for Tax Recovery Charges & Service Fees. When I called Priceline to find out what the fee was for, I received several reasons for the charge, none of which made any sense. I WILL NEVER KNOWINGLY GET ANYWHERE CLOSE TO PRICELINE AGAIN. SCAM….
Priceline charged me $101.00 extra for my hotel stay. When I called Priceline the rep. said the hotel was not supposed to tell me the price because they add their fees in the the rate. I asked them why it wasn’t listed on their site so the people will know. He said because it is not supposed to be know by us. I told them I wanted my refund or I was getting a lawyer and he hung up.