Small overcharge, big problem

Q: I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites in Torrington, Wyo., for one night. When I checked in, an associate said my bill would come to a total of $67.06, including tax. I was told that the hotel’s computer was down and that I would receive a receipt in the morning. I paid by credit card and was offered a handwritten check-in slip that showed the final rate.

When I checked out the next morning, I was told the computer was still down and that I could use the check-in slip as my receipt. But when I got my credit card bill, I was charged $74.52.

I wrote letters to the Holiday Inn Express property I stayed at and to the corporate headquarters of Holiday Inn asking for a refund. I have never received any reply from anyone.

OK, so we’re talking about $7 here. That’s not a lot of money, and I wasn’t willing to continue fighting it. But my guess is that this wasn’t a one-time occurrence, but rather a pattern of fraud. And Holiday Inn does not seem to care.

– Robert J. Duval, Bangkok, Thailand

A: You’re right, $7 isn’t a lot of money. But this isn’t about the money. It’s the principle. Can a hotel overcharge you for your room and then stonewall you for two years? Of course not.

You sent a letter to the hotel and the hotel chain. Both should have responded to your inquiry as if you were disputing $700 — or $7,000.

So what happened? I asked my Holiday Inn contact, and the answer is: No one really knows. I could speculate that someone made a mathematical error when calculating your final bill. I could also guess that you had a room charge of some kind that got added on to your bill. But that would just be conjecture.

You shouldn’t have let this go after two letters. The next step would have been to dispute the charge on your credit card. Chances are the hotel would have issued a refund to you immediately when they were contacted by the dispute department. (Credit card disputes are expensive, and no one would go through the trouble of fighting over $7).

You could also have contacted me a bit sooner.

As to your assertion that this is a “pattern of fraud” — I strongly doubt it. If we were talking about the No-Tell Motel, then maybe. But the situation you described, with the electronics on the blink, sounds like an honest error to me.

I asked Holiday Inn about your case, and it contacted you immediately.

“We dropped the ball when Mr. Duval contacted us,” said John Sturm, a representative from the hotel’s executive office. “An agent tried to call him but his voice-mail box was full. So they closed the file, pending further contact from him. But we had an e-mail address for him, and should have tried to contact him that way.”

Holiday Inn apologized to you and offered a refund and 10,000 loyalty points. You declined the $7 refund, but accepted the apology and the points, which are enough for a free night at a Holiday Inn Express property.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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