Hotel The Tark — Hotel in New Delhi

DONT BOTHER BOOKING THIS HOTEL NOR THE CAVES PLAZA HOTEL

I wanna share my terrible experience due to this hotel. I arrived to New Delhi at 4pm and had a 7 hour transit so decided to book Hotel Caves on Booking.com to rest instead of waiting at the airport. What a mistake that was.

The drive was supposed to be 15’ but it ended up being 1h because of narrow alleys with dozens of cars causing unnecessary traffic & because driver didnt know where to go, kept miscommunicating with receptionist on the phone and even told me that the hotel is fully booked so he’s taking me to another one called De’Tark from which the receptionist called me (they kept saying the 2 hotels have the same owners or something). They also ripped me off with taxi price, and made me pay 700 rupees for 7-8km, same price as overnight stay, when it should have been about 200 rupees.

When I finally arrived to check in at De Tark I waited another 45 minutes because another couple had a problem with their family room being unavailable. I asked reception to confirm my room price and they couldn’t due to bad internet. I went outside and met 2 other Israeli guests who coincidentally booked this same hotel (Caves Plaza) and couldn’t find it and said the property’s unreachable so they had to book another hotel. When I asked De’Tark to confirm the price of the room, they said it’s 1500 rupees when on my booking it says 750 rupees. When I confronted them they said i’m at the wrong hotel and their staff will take me to the real Caves Plaza and I had to walk another 10 minutes. They knew this from the beginning so basically, they tried to rip me off again making me pay 1500 rupees for another hotel because driver had told me hotel’s fully booked when actually it wasnt. When I finally arrived to Cave Plaza, all sweaty & tired, the new receptionist confirmed the correct price but said the room’s still unavailable and I have to wait for it to be cleaned. It was 6:10pm, and their check in time is supposedly 12pm. I was so fed up that I decided to take a Uber back to the airport (paid 150 rupees lol, unlike the 700 rupees initial rip off ride).

Honestly having even a 24h long transit at the airport would still have been better than what I had to go through, feeling confused, angry and exhausted from frustration at the lack of transparency & organization. The perfect reviews on Booking must be 100% fake. This is just a summary of all the chaotic events that happened in the span of 2 hours.

I have stayed in the past 20 years in hostels, hotels, b&bs, homestays etc. in 15 countries all over Asia & Europe and I never experienced something so horrific and such dishonest people and these 2 hours honestly negatively impacted how I view this country and I never wanna step foot on...

BE AWARE of this SCAM. This hotel makes bookings under four names and it is a complete scam. You will end up disappointed and money taken from you - getting a disgusting room and facilities and nothing like described on your booking or pictures. They advertise under three names: Hotel Grand Tej Plaza near IGA (they use this on Booking.com) Hotel Tela Suite (this was the name outside the building I was taken to) Hotel The Tark (apparently they are part of The Tark group of family owned hotels). Also name on hotel window. Hotel Prime Plaza (this has somehow disappeared off the internet)

You will be offered a good deal on the booking websites, great pictures and beautiful descriptions. They will take your money upfront. They will ask for booking references and pins in order to falsify reviews.

You will get: A hotel in the SLUM part of Delhi - it's a very rough neighbourhood and very noisy. Dirty rooms (walls, linen and mattresses are disgusting) No windows (despite the pictures on your booking showing big windows). Toilet seats falling off the toilet. No toilet paper (unless asking for) Water boiler with electric plug next to shower (DANGEROUS!) Mould in bathroom. No water (until it is pumped by truck into a well below the hotel) - I'm assuming this water is used to cook the food and clean the facilities...and with which you will shower/bathe. Staff don't speak proper English They get rude when you complain about spots and dirt on your bed. They tell you it's "clean" spots. Refusal to give money back despite not staying - I ran out of there as quickly as I could.

Look at reviews on Google under Hotel The Tark - you will see similar issues...but they chance their rating with fake reviews. The same happens on Booking.com where they use Hotel Grand Tej Plaza.

PLEASE do yourself a favour and don't make the same mistake I did. DO NOT BOOK with this hotel or any of the names I...

I booked hotel 'Premiun Tark' but landed on this ' The Tark' hotel' based on the address given by hotel staff over the phone. This hotel is a SCAM and I am writing to aware people and avoid falling in trap same way like me. My confirmation of online booking said no extra costs to pay at hotel and confirmed on availability of deluxe rooms, but hotel staff said these rooms were not available, modified my booking instantly and asked me to pay extra 1500 IRS including taxes/GST after my arrival as seen in the photo. I had to pay and was forced to accept because it was 10.30pm at night and I had wife and kids. The rooms were far different than what was in the picture of my CONFIRMED booking, as it was a different hotel of the same group. The rooms were very dirty, had cigarettes butts on the table, astray on bed, bed sheets with stains of food, toilet had cigarettes, taps not working, no towels at all, and didn't provided one even after multiple calls, hallway was like a dusty road.On top of all this, there was no water in the 2nd day of my stay and we were asked to use another rooms bathroom in another floor. It was inconvenient for my family of 6 to go to the next floor with stuffs to use the bathroom and shower. PLEASE AVOID THIS SCAM.

I saw some foreigners upset at the counter and arguing and felt very bad. To the hotel owner - please do not scam and loot people of their situation and remember that hotel is a service business. Scamming people is not service it's a SIN. Please be ethical and moral and remember that you are representing India and it's culture to the foreigners. By your action you are defaming the country and scaring foreign visitors to come to India and go for very expensive star hotels to avoid scams like yours.

To the owner again, life is short, do ethical hardwork and not scam because you will someday regret...