A POPULAR website-based company has been forced to apologise to a Towy Valley business after taking almost £1,000 from their business account by mistake.

Michael Brunsdon, manager of The Level Crossing in Llandovery, had been in a contract with TripAdvisor for a year, but decided to leave as he didn’t think the service was beneficial to his business.

TripAdvisor is an American travel website company which provides a hotel booking system as well as reviews of travel-related content.

Mr Brunsdon decided to take out a contract with Booking.com instead, but was left shocked after his card was declined by the company and £975 has been withdrawn from his account by TripAdvisor without any notification.

Mr Brunsdon, who has been the manager at The Level Crossing for 13 months, said: “I was really unhappy with the service we received when I was in a contract with TripAdvisor as we didn’t seem to get any business from the website.

“When I found out that the money had been taken out of my account, after we’d left the contract, I was concerned as to why TripAdvisor had automatically used my bank details as I was no longer a customer.

“When we have visitors book stays with us we do not keep their bank details. It is invading someone’s privacy.

“When I called them last week to complain the staff at TripAdvisor kept on fobbing us off.

“It was like finding a pot of gold to try and get hold of anyone, but eventually they sent over an email apologising for the mistake.”

The manager is now warning other businesses using TripAdvisor to check their accounts.

“It just makes you think how many other businesses are being caught out by TripAdvisor,” he said.

“I don’t think they were worth using as they never notified us when bookings were made.”

A spokesperson from Trip Advisor said: “We regret that due to human error, the cancellation process was not appropriately followed in this instance and as such a payment was erroneously taken.

“As soon as we were made aware of this, the payment was refunded to the customer.

“We are addressing this to ensure it does not happen again and will be in touch with the customer to offer a gesture of goodwill.”