Source: Bigstock

No one likes to be swindled, even if only of a sum easily affordable to him, for it is a personal humiliation. One has been taken for a fool.

Recently, I wanted to book online a room in a hotel in a city in the South of France. It was in one of those chain hotels in which the rooms are precisely the same whether the hotel is in the Sahara or Antarctica. One knows what one is getting, and it never varies.

These days, I prefer such hotels, for two reasons. First, they are cheap, and I have reached a stage (or an age) in life when I fear that any unnecessary expenditure is certain to lead in short order to complete ruination and pauperdom. Second, I love the complete anonymity that such hotels confer. They offer no services, beyond cleanliness, and therefore conduce to no disappointment or complaint. It is not how I want to live for the rest of my life, but for a day or two it is like getting one’s breath back after a race.

“I shall not again be so careless or trusting.”

I entered the name of the chain’s website on my computer and was instantaneously redirected, almost without my noticing, to a site offering a room at 60 euros. The site was called Getaroom.com. It seemed aboveboard, and I duly paid my 63 euros—as I thought.

89 euros disappeared from my account instantly, and no confirmation of any booking arrived. I telephoned the hotel, and no booking had been received. In effect, the money had been stolen from me.

The bank, quite understandably and correctly, disclaimed any responsibility. It had been a commercial transaction and—caveat emptor. Fearing further theft by Getaroom.com, I blocked my credit card and ordered a new one. This was a minor inconvenience, but minor inconveniences add up, and life seems after a certain age to be more and more an accumulation or concatenation of minor inconveniences.

I tried to communicate with Getaroom.com, but—by this time not to my surprise—I found that I could not. I tried at least three numbers but on each was told either that the line was for hotel reservations only or that I should contact the hotel with which the reservation had been made. However, the automated message was recorded for training and monitoring purposes.

Was Getaroom.com a real business, or straightforwardly a scam? I investigated a little, as in theory I should have done before entrusting it with my payment, but I have ever borne in mind Dr. Johnson’s remark that it is better sometimes to be deceived than never to trust. If one investigated the bona fides of every organization with which one had to deal, commercial or otherwise, one would become like the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, according to Karl Popper, a rival philosopher, who said of him that he was always polishing his spectacles without ever looking through them.

Certainly, online reviews of Getaroom.com were less than flattering. There were more than 10,000 of them, and if I may summarize them, they said that the site was at best a nightmare to deal with and at worst an out-and-out scam. Here is one comment: “This is a fraudulent company that will try to take your money any which way it can.”

Somewhat to my surprise, I discovered that it was not an entirely fly-by-night endeavor or outfit, such as are run by Nigerian swindlers who offer you a portion of a deceased politician’s ill-gotten gains, if only you provide your bank details to them. On the contrary, it had been bought by Booking Holdings in 2021 for $1.2 billion. Booking Holdings owns Booking.com, and Getaroom.com was absorbed into a subsidiary of Booking Holdings called Priceline.

Either by inadvertence or deliberately, it seems that Booking Holdings tolerates an association with a criminal organization that has in effect stolen money from thousands of people, including me—in some cases, much more than from me.

In a sense, no doubt, we were all at fault in our own victimization. Apart from those who might have been excused their trusting naivety before the dishonesty of the site became evident, we failed to investigate the trustworthiness of those whom we were paying, which would have been revealed to us at the click of a button. We were like people who leave their car doors and windows open and something conspicuously valuable on the back seat. If it is stolen, they are not entitled to much sympathy, albeit that the crime of theft is still the crime of theft.

When it happened to me, I was prey to various emotions. I was annoyed with myself, of course, for having so lazily assumed that the website was legitimate, though I knew the world was a wicked place replete with scoundrels, and I was humiliated by my own naivety, having sometimes laughed up my sleeve at acquaintances who had been gulled by swindlers on the internet—a not-so-merry band that I had now joined. I was angry at the people who ran and benefited from this scheme and who had stolen my money, as I would have been angry at someone who robbed me in the street. But principally I was appalled at my own impotence in the face of this swindle. To whom could I turn even to investigate it, let alone right it? To what authority could I appeal to suppress the site? I felt as small, as tiny and insignificant, as I feel when I look up at the stars on a clear night (perhaps, given our natural tendency toward self-importance, it is salutary to be reminded of this from time to time).

There is such a thing in psychology as one-trial learning. A single unpleasant experience is sufficient to change an organism’s conduct (if I may call myself an organism) forever, no repetition being necessary. Of course, experiences that result in one-trial learning are generally unpleasant, such as putting one’s hand on a red-hot poker. I shall not again be so careless or trusting.

Still, there is much to trust in the modern world. When I drink from the tap, I assume that the water is not bacteriologically contaminated. When I buy butter or some other commodity, I assume that the weight is correctly represented on the packet. One must be vigilant but not hypervigilant. Mistrust as a default setting is unpleasant not only to him who has it, but to those about him and to society in general. Excessive mistrust is like excessive rumination: As King Lear puts it, “That way madness lies.”

But what is excessive? In that judgment lies the art of living.

Theodore Dalrymple’s latest book is On the Ivory Stages (Mirabeau Press).