The Octagon Premium Suites by Verve — Hotel in Perak

You should brace yourself for the most infuriating customer service experience ever. I booked 2 months before CNY.

A little context: I have 10 people total in my party. I booked 2 rooms with a capacity of 6 Pax each per room. That should more than enough cover my party.

2 weeks before the stay, they messaged me saying that the rooms had been double booked due to a booking error, and if it was ok to switch rooms. I told them, as long as the rooms can fit the same number of people, I would be fine.

Simple enough, right? Apparently not.

6 days pass, and they ask me for confirmation. I already mentioned that it was ok to proceed - what confirmation do they need? So it turns out this person's comprehension is beyond abysmal.

I say OK again but this time, it turns out all the rooms are booked and they offered to transfer us to another location which was a building with a lot of coffin shops around it... which we purposely avoided which we did not like.

My parents are in their late 70s, and don't appreciate having to be reminded about death during CNY. However, left with no choice, I discussed it with my family members.

So we decided, FINE. We will take the transfer, as long as it can fit our party of 10. When I messaged this person 20 minutes later, they almost seemed confused.

exact words from WhatsApp: "So sorry We don't have two unit is can fix 10 guest ya. Cause ori you book unit is can fix 6 Pax only"

EH, STUPID. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SAYING AH? 6 Pax x 2 units is how much??? 12 Right? 12 is more than 10 right???

So I explain it again.

"So sorry for this just now we check the unit all is full"

WAH THESE PEOPLE LIKE NEVER HEARD OF HOLDING ROOMS WHILE WAITING FOR CONFIRMATION BEFORE HOR.

Apparently 20 minutes was too long a period to answer and now the alternative location is also fully booked.

So they then asked us to transfer to ANOTHER location, which was WAYYyyYyyYYy out of the way of where our CNY celebrations would be at. Worse still, we had to top up cash. The unit for the new location can only fit 8 Pax so it was an awkward arrangement. To charge us for something that is entirely their fault is simply unacceptable.

At this point, I just wanted to not speak with this person anymore, and asked for a Refund, to which they told me to proceed using Booking's customer service.

Can we talk about how there is no accountability at all? Can't even offer us the refund directly if I cancel - I actually have to contact Booking's customer service as their cancellation policy is NO REFUNDS

I started a refund process via Booking and luckily they fully refund me.

In short, if you like speaking with a customer service person who refers to you as "Dear" and doesn't know how to take accountability, go ahead.

The worse thing is that this happened around a week before our CNY stay. In short, I will never forgive this incident. UNFORGIVABLE....

Terrible experience with the management team, especially the Indian guy from management (I don’t remember his name).

I booked a homestay through Agoda under Verve Concept Home. I was charged a RM150 deposit. However, my sister also booked a unit there (under a different owner) and wasn’t asked for any deposit.

Anyway, I checked out early the next day at around 10:45 AM and informed them. My family and I then went out for breakfast.

Later, the owner messaged me saying the condo management claimed that someone from my group entered the gym after swimming without drying off, and they would deduct RM100 from my deposit due to a fine issued by management.

This is not true. My niece entered the gym, but he didn’t swim. My daughter and two nieces went swimming, but did not enter the gym. I explained this to the owner and asked for CCTV evidence, but instead, I was told to go to the management office on Level 8 — even though I had already checked out and was out with my 75-year-old mother to celebrate her birthday.

It was frustrating. I asked the owner to assist us, but they said I would have to wait until evening. That wasn’t possible — I live in KL, my mother is from Kelantan, and my sister is from Penang. We couldn’t just wait around all day.

I also asked for the management’s contact number, but the owner claimed they couldn’t give it — even though I had seen them receive a call from the management right in front of me earlier.

So after breakfast, we went back to the condo. The security guard told us it wasn’t us — it was a Malay family, and they had already informed the management. Then we went to speak with the management person (the rude Indian guy). First, he said it wasn’t us, then blamed the guard. I couldn’t tell if he was being honest or just covering up.

My sister was understandably upset, and we had to go back and forth just to clear things up. Finally, he just said, “I already apologized, right?” — as if that fixed everything.

Eventually, they did refund my full deposit, but only after I reminded them. This entire situation was very stressful, especially since we were there to celebrate my mom’s birthday.

I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone. If this had happened after we had already left for another city like Ipoh or Penang, we probably would have lost our deposit unfairly. Something really needs to be done to prevent this from...

First the positives - the location of Octagon is excellent with many of Ipoh's great eateries and night market nearby.||The apartment itself was far below our expectations and very different to the photos and descriptions on the booking websites. We had a 2 BR apartment and required beds for 6 people. There were beds for six people, however one of the beds was in the living room which was not detailed in the room description. The room furnishings were very basic with not even a table or enough chairs in the living area. Beds and pillows were quite uncomfortable.||A warning for international travellers. Octagon requires a security deposit (which in itself is not a problem). What is a problem is that guests are only advised of this deposit 2 hours prior to check-in and the only way to pay the deposit is by online bank transfer. Clearly very difficult for a traveller that does not have a Malaysian bank account. Our security deposit got waived (despite us happy to pay in cash). We assume that the "cost" of the waiving of this deposit was getting "downgraded" to a more basic apartment hence the...