Otel.com

I booked a hotel with otel.com last October from an internet cafe and received an email confirming my booking. The hotel was advertised as being 5k from Bergamo (Italy), the taxi driver told me it would cost 1 euro per km so when 25 minutes and a 25 euro bill later I asked why the journey took so long he said that the information I'd been given was inaccurate (this is backed up by AA autoroute). On arrival at the hotel, they did not have my booking and the number I gave them meant nothing, they allowed me to log on to the internet and I found to my horror that my booking had been cancelled.

I ended up having to negotiate a room with the hotel which cost 20 euro more than the price I'd paid on otel.com (though seems they did not charge my card) and forked out a total of 50euro in taxi fares for a hotel which was supposed to be 5km from bergamo and 6km to the airport (both clearly inaccurate).

I have been communicating with various non english speaking customer service personnel (apparently from their turkey office) and in nearly 6 months have got nowhere fast.

They insist the distance to the hotel is correct and seem to ignore my documentary evidence to the contrary.

They say they tried to contact me by phone and because I did not reply they cancelled my booking - I never received a call nor a missed call nor an answermachine message.

They tried to say maybe I'd given an invalid tel number but they contradicted this by stating my "correct" tel number on one of my emails.

They said the person that dealt with me had left the company

They said they would raise the complaint with the hotel - though clearly it was not the hotel's fault.

They insist that they tried to contact me - yet the only contact I had was an email (when I arrived at the hotel) to say they had cancelled it.

Basically they are saying that because they never confirmed my booking and did not charge my card that they cannot help me with my complaint.

I have asked for escalation but I've been told that it is Caroline (born in UK) but now based in Turkey is the highest port of call. She is simply not responding to my questions but is now saying that she cannot help me as it is more than 5 months since the event.

I have kept all the emails and am considering going to trading standards, I have received appalling customer services and they simply are not interested in my complaints and continue to avoid the issues and fob me off.

I'm severely angry and frustrated because of their general attitude and I just don't know what I can do to resolve this matter.

If anyone can offer advice please let me know...