Tentative Guarantees (Long)

[Lostfiniel]

Some background: I work at a hotel as a supervisor. The current SC situation we are having problems with started last year around the time of the California wildfires,

The day before the fires really started to cause havoc, a lady called our hotel to book two rooms. When she called she had all the information including the room types, how many people, dates, names and her credit card number. The reservation was being made a month ahead of time and everything went through just fine on our end.

Her reservation date comes around and nobody shows up. Because we have a 24 hour cancelation policy any rooms that have been guaranteed with a credit card will be charged on the day of arrival whether the person is there or not. Since nobody showed up, we charged one night stay for both rooms she had booked.

A couple weeks later I get a call:

SC: I'd like to talk to someone about a charge on my card.

Me: Alright, could you tell me your last name, the date of the charge and the last four digits of your credit card number.

SC: (She gives them)

Me: Ok, it looks like there was a reservation made with your name and credit card for (dates) and nobody showed up for the rooms.

SC: I only made tentative reservations!

Me: Mame, we don't make tentative reservations here. We get credit card numbers so we can GUARANTE the room.

SC: That is not what I asked for!

Me: It is not something that can be requested, this is company policy. When you book a room and use a credit card on it, it is guaranteeing the reservation. If you don't need the room, you need to call before 4pm the day before and cancel.

SC: Why would I call to cancel a tenative reservation?? I want my money back!

Me: I'm sorry I cannot give you your money back. But, if you would like to come stay with us I can offer you either one night of two free rooms or one room for two free nights.

SC: I would never stay at your hotel! I'm calling my bank!!

After she hung up my manager and I talked about it. We have both had problems with people not wanting to pay the cancelation fee before. It's always a pain to deal with.

Just today we received a fax from her bank. She had written up a complaint form about the charges but her story changed! Instead of saying anything about a "tentative" reservation.....she said we were too busy and our operator at the front desk was rushing them. And then, they called back to cancel and "nobody" could find their reservation.

We called her bank and they said the lady seemed fishy to them.

We'll hopefully find out soon. What frustrates me is that normally if customers have a problem with things like this, going to their bank will get the charges removed. If we want the money we have to actually take them to small claims court.

[Jade Panurple]

We have this problem alot also. I had a lady recently calling me crying and saying that we were stealing her money and that her children were going to starve. If your that bad off, what the hell do you think your doing when you reserve two rooms at 160.00 a night each??!!??

The best one was someone sending us a cc dispute because thier card had been "stolen". I did a little investigating, and the charges were made by an employee we had just fired, and I was at the hotel when she used it, under her own login code and password, and the person the card belonged to was her boyfriend's parents! They had even called me and told me she could use the card, and then they send over a cc authorization form. Fat chance they'll get that money back.


Sorry for the thread jack!

[Crawley]

Yeah, chargebacks and fraudulent (sp?) transaction stuff is a pain in the butt. WE get them from AMEX every so often.

Even with a credit card imprint, signed registration card and guest info, 90% of the time we still eat the charge.

[VenomX]

It would rock if there was a national database of people that pulled this crap. If you are on the list no hotel or motel would rent you a room period unless it was cash and paid upfront.

[Lostfiniel]

It would rock if there was a national database of people that pulled this crap. If you are on the list no hotel or motel would rent you a room period unless it was cash and paid upfront.

Luckily, our management let's us keep track of customers who have wronged us in the past. So, someone may be able to get away with it once, but we will be watching for them again.


I'm always amazed at the people who dispute charges like these. We also had a guy recently who rented out one of our non-smoking rooms. His "Lady-friend" decided she needed a smoke and did so. They snuffed the cigarrette into the soap dish which melted it and left a black stain.

We have a room recovery fee of $250 for smoking in a room and charged him. He had already signed the registration card that stated that specific policy right on it. When he saw the charge he called and complained saying "You are charging me two hundred and fifty bucks for a freaking soap dish?!?!?"

He also sent his lawyer around to pick-up a copy of the reg. card

[Naaman]

He also sent his lawyer around to pick-up a copy of the reg. card

And did his lawyer say anything?

Enquiring minds want to know

[wagegoth]

He also sent his lawyer around to pick-up a copy of the reg. card

His lawyer?

Any halfway decent lawyer is going to charge more than $250 for the time to pick up the card.

[Peppergirl]

Lost - I'm a travel agent and usually the only time I have to call and cancel inside of the cxl policy is when someone's flight is cancelled and they can't make it. My track record on getting the hotel to waive the no-show is about 75/25 in my favor.

Course, I don't act sucky when they won't waive it. I completely understand.

I had a guy one time who asked me to call and cancel a hotel in Mexico City inside of the cancel period just because he decided he didn't want to stay there and wanted to stay somewhere else. I placed him on hold and asked my manager what I should do. He told me to call and lie and say the guy was sick or that his flight was cancelled.

I was pissed.

Normally, I'd refuse, but I was new at the time, so I took the passive-aggressive way out and PRETENDED to call. I was speaking to a dial tone the whole time.

The dial-tone refused to waive the fee.

[Javarod]

It would rock if there was a national database of people that pulled this crap. If you are on the list no hotel or motel would rent you a room period unless it was cash and paid upfront.

Actually there is. I used to do hotel paper delivery for USA Today, and I recall seeing a small blurb on the front page about some new service hotels can sign up for, basically a national database of problem customers. Dunno ifn it'll take off, but hopefully it will.

[Broomjockey]

It would rock if there was a national database of people that pulled this crap. If you are on the list no hotel or motel would rent you a room period unless it was cash and paid upfront.

Database? Good idea. Payment up front? Good idea. Cash only? Bad idea. The problem comes from deposits. If you don't have their credit card or such, if they trash the room, then you can't recover those losses. And I've heard tales of rooms trashed to the tune of a couple thousand dollars. Leaving a cash deposit doesn't work well for various reasons. I think room fees upfront, but some form of secured payment is still needed.

[VenomX]

Database? Good idea. Payment up front? Good idea. Cash only? Bad idea. The problem comes from deposits. If you don't have their credit card or such, if they trash the room, then you can't recover those losses. And I've heard tales of rooms trashed to the tune of a couple thousand dollars. Leaving a cash deposit doesn't work well for various reasons. I think room fees upfront, but some form of secured payment is still needed.

See I never thought about that because I am not the type that would trash a room.

[Broomjockey]

See I never thought about that because I am not the type that would trash a room.

I only thought of it because a) my residence has a few guest rooms, and b) the boss has instituted policy for those rooms that even the ones paid in cash need a credit card on file, as other places he's worked at have been burned heavily, and c) it takes us 6 weeks or more to get a refund to people no matter the method of payment, so to issue back a deposit isn't feasible, so we need a way to charge them after they leave.

Personally, the only ways I'm trashing a room are if someone's trying to actively kill me while I'm in the room, or if the room hit me first.

[VenomX]

I didnt mean that you thought of it because you would do that. Just was pointing out why it never occured to me...

[Broomjockey]

I didnt mean that you thought of it because you would do that. Just was pointing out why it never occured to me...

Oh, I knew that. Just explaining why I managed to think of it (which I technically didn't). I'm surprisingly oblivious at times (just ask some of my friends who've told me after the fact I was being flirted with), but I still like to give credit where it's due.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

We get a lot of chargebacks here. Sometimes banks will call us and ask about a chargeback, cause they think it's fishy. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn't. It's easy to abuse our phone service.

We get a lot of people who will put money on a friend or relative's phone as well as theirs, then forget they did it, and dispute the charge. When we get notice of a dispute we flag all the phones on the account. So the person gets their phone shut down, their friend's phone, any family members phones, etc. They then call and yell at us because no one can use their phones. Well then maybe you should have investigated that charge before disputing it, shouldn't you?