BOSTON — It’s stressful enough planning your own wedding. But for Jenna Remsburg, it’s downright infuriating when the company you were using suddenly shuts down and refuses to give your money back.
“I’m like, what are we going to do?” Remsburg said from her Derry, New Hampshire home.
Remsburg said she and her bridesmaids are out $3,200 after making reservations through BookIt.com in January for a November wedding in Jamaica. The online travel site went dark last month and blames it on the coronavirus pandemic.
A message on the website warns the company is “currently unable to process refunds…”
“I’m more hurt than angry, because I think they’re trying to use the pandemic as a reason why they stole everyone’s money,” Remsburg said.
BookIt.com is based in Panama City, Florida. A spokesperson for the Florida attorney general’s office said investigators recently served the company with a subpoena. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s office has received 16 complaints and is also looking into the matter, according to a department spokesperson.
Bob McNamara, of Millbury, began paying BookIt.com in 2019 for a family vacation to Jamaica this spring. He said he’s out $3,500. “Basically we were told [by BookIt.com] we’re on our own. We have to get it back from our own credit card company."
“The site had pretty much just shut down…Essentially they have vanished. Like, there’s no one at their building in Florida, there’s no number to call. They just said, ‘Good luck,” McNamara said.
McNamara and Remsburg shared their stories in the Facebook group, “Scammed by Book It,” which has more than 1,500 members.
“You’re not going to get immediate satisfaction with anything,” said Seldon Nason, a consumer rights attorney in North Andover. He said the first step is to file a dispute with your credit card company or bank. “You have a better chance of getting the money back from your credit card company than you do from a company that has filed bankruptcy, or is about to file bankruptcy."
McNamara doesn’t have a lot of hope of recouping his money. “It’s just a waiting game right now. We’re starting to think more and more, wow, we really might not get this money back,” he said.
The Mass. attorney general’s office is encouraging people with consumer issues to file a complaint with their office online.
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