Hotel claim I had a pet in the room!

Monkey61

Hi,

Apologies if this is the wrong forum - but I wasn't sure where would be best.

Basically, I got my credit card bill a few days ago and found out that a hotel I stayed in, with my family, in Seattle for one night, had charged me two extra amounts of $75 each, two days after we left.

I emailed to ask why and they said it was because we had undisclosed pets in both of the rooms and they had to be professionally cleaned and deodorized!

I emailed back apologising and explaining that I had cut my hair in one of the rooms and any excess hair on the carpet was my bleached blonde, very human hair. I followed this up with a phone call. An employee shouted at me down the phone about he knew the difference between animal hair and human hair and that there was also excrement (!!) on the floor in both of the rooms.

I rang back later to speak to the manager and explained that I had cut my own hair and did not have a pet. He said he would refund half the money, but not the other half as there was he believed "significant" damage to one of the rooms. I explained how the only damage was my hair, which two minutes of vacuuming would have fixed. He said he would get back to me.

Last night I received an email stating that all the charges stand because the cleaners reported signs of a pet in the room and the clean up operation was huge. He said the volume of hair was too much to believe it could have come from a hair cut (which I know is a lie because I have short hair and was cutting it over a towel anyway). He also said that as I signed a form allowing them to charge me for any damages, that even if I get the credit card company to look into it they won't be able to do anything.

I'm furious! What do I do? Will the credit card company actually do anything? Can the hotel essentially lie and steal from me?

seamus

Sounds like a bog standard scamola to get money out of unwitting tourists. You can call your credit card company and tell them that the money wasn't authorised to be taken from your credit card, but they'll probably come back to you and tell you to sort out the dispute yourself.

Ask them for a full itemised list of the alleged damage to the rooms. If they can't provide this, or they provide a bull**** list, then threaten them with legal action. Dodgy places rely on the fact that tourists couldn't be bothered chasing up money from a different country.

gerrycollins

Stand your ground. I'm amazed by the amount of people who let themselves get bullied. I agree with seamus ask for details and get your credit card company involved.

Agreeded you did sign the sheet but only for legitimate reasons. Ask them for actual proof? photos? Tell them that you belive they are lying and its just a scam, really get their goat up. Make sure you have a record of every correspondance and take notes of phone calls but best avoid them. Contact their head office if they have any. Contact any holiday (bord Failte equivalent)company and complain. Who gives hotels their rating in the US? contact them, they wont want bad publicity. Tell them you will go public.

Get some legal advice, solicitors will have an informal chat about it with you there might be enough info in that 5 minutes chat.

Slightly mad but similar tactics help me ages ago with a mobile phone company

Emerald Lass

What a liberty!!! bloody hell.

Firstly I would have thought that the onus of proof would be on them regarding the so called 'damage'. If they said you 'damaged' the property surely they would need some proof to back up that claim?

secondly, as I am assuming you are Irish and travelling from Ireland, then where do they think you hid said unauthorised pets when you got to the airport??? you can prove you did not travel with a pet, they cannot prove damage. Tell them to sling their hook1

as others have said report them, go online an slate, (trip advisor etc) and finally, not sure if this will work, but ask CC co if you can report them for fraud as you beleive they are fraudulently charging you and using your card for charges you did not incurr and which you have not authorised? CC co may well agree its possibly fraudulent and may request proof of charges - i.e proof of the damage they claim was caused.

good luck and let us know how you get on!

wyndham

Some of the replies here are a bit OTT imo. It's not normal or reasonable behaviour that you should cut your hair onto a hotel room carpet and just leave it there. Why not do it in the (presumably tiled) bathroom. It is not easy to remove a large amount of hair from a carpet through hoovering and this would be a time consuming process. Regarding the alleged faecal matter on the floor, is it possible that one of you got mud on your shoes while walking? If this was the case, the hotel have made a not unreasonable assumption and cries of scamola, etc are way off the mark.

jen_23

Some of the replies here are a bit OTT imo.

I don't think you would think that if it was you scammed out of 150dollars! I'm sure you would want to do all you can to get your money back. In my experience I have found going over the top is sometimes all that works.

From what you said OP you have short hair so I assume you weren't cutting hair that was down to your backside into a bob! I imagine it was a trim!
I cut my bf hair every few weeks and what goes into the carpet is no biggy to hoover up ina few mins. Certainly wouldn't take approx100 euro of labour to clean up!

I think you should do the best you can to get your money back.

I agree with Emerald lass that you can prove you were not travelling with pets.

Let us know how this goes. Best of luck!

wyndham

jen_23 wrote: »

I don't think you would think that if it was you scammed out of 150dollars!

Like I said I wouldn't have cut my hair onto the carpet in the first instance.

They have already offered him half the money back. The notion that the OP should "go on Tripadvisor, etc" and badmouth the hotel is twaddle. What exactly would the review say; "this is a nice hotel, but beware that if you decide to cut your own hair and leave it all over the carpet while staying there, you may have to pay for the priviledge of doing so."

AlonsoX

How much hair was there, like I have a Golden Labrador and in one night he wouldnt shed enough hair to be noticeable make a room look like a hair salon.
Does the hotel have a CSI team or are you extremely hirsute.
I think the hotel are taking the p here

Alonso Xa

www.print-cafe.com

XJR

wyndham wrote: »

beware that if you decide to cut your own hair and leave it all over the carpet while staying there, you may have to pay for the priviledge of doing so."

I shave my own head weekly - never do it on the carpet but if I did it would take about 2 minutes to vacuum and crtainly wouldn't cost €150 - agreed you probably should have cut it in the bathroom but thats' hardly the point.

I'd be pretty mad if this happened to me and I certainly wouldn't let it go.

AlonsoX

I shave mine as well but it would hardly be noticeable if it fell on the floor

ejmaztec

I'm sorry but I cannot ignore the irony of someone called Monkey61 being accused of keeping a pet in a hotel room.

If it was not some kind of scam, the cleaning staff must have either had a bad hair-day or have been infuriated by the mess that they had to clean up. Who knows what trouble there was after the OP left the hotel?

Some people don't care what kind of mess they leave behind in hotel rooms, assuming that they don't need to do anything because the cleaning staff are there to do it for them.

I would pester the hotel management to find out exactly what went on.

slave1

name and shame

Run_to_da_hills

By any chance that you left a window open?

A skunk or raccoon could have hopped in, these animals are notorious for leaving a mess.

tony1kenobi

If you can prove you had no pets and they can produce evidence that the room had animal waste in it doesn't that mean you stayed in a contaminated room? Once you get a list of what they found in the room threaten them with an action based on the evidence they have given you.

That might work. Maybe take the action anyway if you can be bothered.

Monkey61

Thanks for the responses folks - feeling much better about it now.

Yes I know I shouldn't have left hair on the carpet but we were in a rush, I was cutting it over a towel anyway - not directly on the carpet, so it wasn't like there was much extra on the carpet!

I'll let you know how it goes anyway!