Finding a place to stay during your vacation can be difficult, but reserving cheaper rooms through third-party booking websites may not always be the best option. A TikTok user named Karlie (@karlierodriguezzzz) went viral after sharing a video about her family’s negative experience with one such website called “BookARoom.com.”
In her video, Karlie claims that her mother unknowingly booked a room at a nonexistent hotel. The TikTok shows footage of her exhausted family sitting outside a random storefront as they try to figure out how to fix their issue.
“Seriously, who uses BookARoom.com? What even is that?” Karlie wrote in the caption. Karlie also uses the hilarious “I wanna go home” TikTok sound as background music to make light of the inconvenient situation.
TikTok users came to the video’s comment section to express their sympathy for Karlie and offer advice. A few TikTokers with connections to the hotel industry provided their two cents.
“[My] husband works for a hotel… please call the hotel immediately after booking with a third party to confirm. He has seen this too often,” a TikToker commented.
“DON’T book third-party. The hotel I used to work at had 26 rooms and [on] EVERY busy weekend, Expedia would overbook us, and people wouldn’t have anywhere to stay,” another wrote.
Another TikTok user also pointed out that the BookARoom.com website allegedly got taken down after Karlie posted her video; however, that statement is up for debate. Some TikTokers believe that the URL is actually “Book-A-Room.com” with hyphens, while others believe that every website with a similar URL is fake. Despite the debate around the website’s existence, TikTokers agree that the website sounds sketchy.
“When you Google ‘BookARoom,’ the second result is telling you it’s a scam,” a TikTok user commented.
“Why they be on the websites without the lock by the URL tag?” another said, referring to browsers’ built-in security features.
“Personally, I don’t allow my parents to make any online expenses without my supervision,” someone else chimed in.
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