Euro football fans find themselves in a “dungeon” after booking accommodation online

After a trouncing in their first Euro 2024 match, a group of Scottish football fans in Germany faced an accommodation fiasco that first landed them in a bedroom made of cardboard and then a dungeon.

Rory Bradley, 28, from Glasgow, posted a thread on X on Sunday explaining the disaster, detailing how Booking.com put his group of friends in an “absolute shambles of a situation”.

Read more: Most Kiwis would book a bach for accommodation, Booking.com study reveals

The nightmare started when they showed up at the property they had booked in Dueren, near Cologne, only to find it in complete disarray. They found a bed made out of cardboard and duct tape and a “broken and disgusting” sofa bed they said was not safe to sleep in.

They spent three hours speaking to three different customer service advisers before Booking.com helped them to find a new place. They traipsed across the town at midnight, hoping to find a good night’s rest elsewhere.

However, the night was far from saved.

Bradley described the next place as a “dungeon-like stay” at ”some sort of abandoned medical facility”. It was filled with hospital beds, industrial equipment, exposed chemicals, cables, pipes and an axe that “looked like something out of a murder film”.

They took a video to highlight what Bradley said he could only describe as “vibes of a human trafficking horror film”.

As they continued inside the property, they found “hazard after hazard”, including a generator room and a serious smell of damp. To top it all off, the front door wouldn’t lock.

The group contacted Booking.com again. “They wanted us to find somewhere and then they would refund us up to £900,” Bradley told MailOnline. But of course, the price of accommodation has shot up now.”

Tired of dealing with the rooming fiasco, Rory and his mates eventually secured new accommodation that cost double the price of the original place for the next few days.

“We left the apartment and booked a hotel for one night (which is on @bookingcom by the way) but we can no longer afford to stay here without help from @bookingcom,” the user shared on X.

While Rory did not follow up the thread with a confirmation that the group was refunded for the accommodation, a spokesperson from Booking.com told Metro UK, “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.”