Is it a simple mistake or is it fraud when a hotel restaurant manager runs a new inflated unauthorized charge for a hotel restaurant meal?
Here are the basic facts:
I am a frequent guest at this hotel. Personnel know me and I am always greeted warmly and by name. The same goes for the restaurant staff. When we go to this hotel, we usually have dinner at the hotel restaurant.
I have the highest status at this hotel chain.
Won’t Run and I stayed at the hotel last weekend. We went to the restaurant. We were greeted by the manager. After the meal, the waitress brought the bill for $59.95. Won’t Run added a $9 tip and charged it to his credit card. Everything seemed fine.
One week later, this past Saturday, Won’t Run was looking at the charges on his credit card and saw a charge from this hotel for $92. He was perplexed. He found the receipt in his pocket for $59.95 plus $9 gratuity and showed it to me.
I immediately phoned the hotel. I asked for the hotel manager but only got a voicemail. I called back and asked for the restaurant manager. He remembered me and said he remembered seeing me on Saturday evening. When I asked about the credit card charge, he quickly said that he changed the charge because the waitress had given us the entirely wrong bill. He noted my phone number and said he’d call me back in a little while. He didn’t call back Saturday or Sunday. It is now 3 p.m. on Monday and still no call. In the interim, I phoned the hotel manager this morning, and left a message on his voicemail, but have not heard anything back.
Won’t Run has the receipt which itemizes our bill. It is correct. Entirely correct. Contrary to what the manager said, Won’t Run paid the right bill.
So what happened?
Could this be a simple mistake by the hotel manager? I would hope so, but I’m troubled by the following facts:
- First, changing a charge by more than $25 without the cardholder’s permission is not right (and is perhaps illegal or fraudulent).
- Second, the restaurant manager knew us, and knew I was staying at the hotel that night. If he really believed there was an issue, why didn’t he have the hotel contact me?
- Third, why hasn’t the restaurant manager or the hotel manager returned my call?
- Fourth, nothing makes sense.
All of the above circumstances leave me to wonder whether this is more than just an isolated incident. I have now spent three days worried and upset by this scenario. I have learned that there is a two step process in charging credit cards at restaurants. First, there is the bill itself, then later the gratuity is added. According to the credit card company, the first charge for $59.95 was made at 10 pm, and the second charge, which should have been for $68.95 (i.e., $59.95 plus $9 gratuity), was instead for $92. This was made at 10:40 pm. Again, why didn’t the restaurant just call up to my room?
You have to understand. This is one of my go-to local hotels. I feel so awful about this.
Clearly, Won’t Run can report this to his credit card company, and will not have to pay the amount up-charged by the hotel restaurant manager.
But what more can and should be done? Sure $25 isn’t much, but it can add up if done repeatedly. At a minimum, I think the hotel should open an investigation and review the prior charges at the restaurant for similar inconsistencies.
I have so many more questions. I like to give others the benefit of the doubt and don’t want to jump to conclusions, but simultaneously I worry that we were taken advantage of or even victimized.
What do you think?
(one further note: on Saturday, I did phone the corporate office of the hotel to explore the issues. At the time, we decided that corporate should hold off doing anything until I contacted the restaurant manager and/or the local hotel general manager. I guess it is now appropriate to involve the corporate office).
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
This is fraud. I say this as the owner of a bar/restaurant. When similar situations happen at my place, as they eventually do, the server is responsible for ringing up the right card on the right bill. If they screw up, they pay the difference. Depending on the frequency of this error and circumstance, I can and sometimes do have the store eat the additional expense, but under NO circumstance is the customer at fault. I really hate to say this, but you should dispute the charge. If nothing else, you’ll be doing a favor for other people in the same situation. You tried calling direct, as is proper, but were rebuffed or ignored. Why should you pay for their mistake?
thank you for your comments and insight.
Christian: What you’re describing is illegal in many states. I’m assuming this was in NY since Will Run works/lives there. NY law doesn’t allow an owner to charge an employee for a shortage:
http://www.labor.ny.gov/formsdocs/wp/LS605.pdf
Manager should have known better; something else is going on here. Inflated tip maybe?
Honestly, I’d sit back another day or two and let them sort it out. I know it feels like forever to you, but some managers with the type of power you need don’t work nights or weekends and it has only been 1 business day. You’ve contacted the right people and kept your documentation – now let them sort it out. Surely this isn’t the only item on their to-do list and they deserve a fair opportunity to fix it appropriately. If still no luck later in the week, escalate with your bank.
thanks Becky. Although it is only a few days since we discovered the overcharge, the date of the stay was actually March 26th.
Be clubs spot on here. Most management is either off on the Monday or in meetings. It is dependent on the type of a occupancy, because biz, resort etc. I would certainly expect you will hear from the management by Wednesday, at the latest.
I will say though that I’m concerned as to the original manager response with regard the totals. That has a little odor emanating.
Be clubs is of course supposed to be Becky
Tim, I think you hit the nail on the head. It just didn’t smell right.
If this is a restaurant you frequent, why are you giving such a small tip? Should have been double what you gave. You gave 13%? If you are a regular, then you should be giving 20-25%. Maybe they just adjusted due to your lousy tipping?
ha ha. (1) certain numbers were rounded up in the post and others rounded down, (2) there is 9% tax here, and (3)anyway, whether the tip was low or high is not relevant.
I agree with Becky. I’d give them a little more time. I’d be pretty annoyed if the restaurant called up to my room at 10:30 at night, actually. Though, they should’ve made sure they discussed it with you before you checked out. I wouldn’t jump to it being fraud, but you’re right to hold their feet to the fire and make sure you get an adequate explanation. If not, then escalate to corporate and perhaps law enforcement. I’d say end of the week for full explanation, including copy of the supposedly “correct” bill. It’s an important part of their story that they think they gave you the wrong bill (happens a lot, unfortunately), so they should be able to send you a pic of the bill they mistakenly thought was yours.
I’m still leaning towards “mistake”, but it was handled completely wrong even if it was an honest mistake.
does not sound right ..manager should have left you a note at checkout or personally contacted you
I do not tip on the tax esp if it is in a city with a 10% or more tax and if a special surtax on liquor!!!!–like some cities in texas and i’m sure other cities
You certainly have your knickers in a twist over a relatively small thing. Me? I’m smelling a mistake long before I’m smelling heinous fraud and on-going criminal activity in order to keep you up nights. If this is a long term relationship with the facility, I’d think you’d want to give them the benefit of the doubt – unless other things have been “not quite right” lately?? Anyway, as a frequent traveler, I have a few thoughts. Given that you (still?) haven’t heard back from the hotel/restaurant, I would start a complaint with your credit card issuer. If you are so inclined, you could reach back out to the manager – but you can and should sleep a lot better just letting the card issuer handle it. I too would have been quite miffed if someone contacted me in my room at 10:30. And you are assuming that the restaurant KNEW what they did that night. My bet is that they didn’t twig to it until you talked to the manager. Again, I’m smelling mistake. Be kind, give them the benefit of the doubt until you know otherwise.
Derek – (besides the knickers part), I really appreciate your comments. I am like you – I generally prefer to hold off doing anything rash and to give the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes though there is that gut feeling that something is wrong – that, for me, was triggered when the restaurant manager rather flippantly told me about us being given the wrong bill and then failed to call back. I hope that that adds up to nothing – I honestly do.
Credit Card security expert here:
Please report this to your credit card company immediately! It is against their Merchant Agreement to do this – which they fully admitted was on purpose and not a mistake on keying in the tip. Also, this data is input into our fraud systems. If the card company starts receiving multiple calls on this then an investigation is started automatically with their acquiring bank.
I worked in restaurants for many years. First, I’d say you were outright lied to about the wrong bill. Of course you know that was your bill you paid for but he did out and out lie about it. Second, it could have been a mistake by the server but I almost doubt it. In every restaurant I worked at, the process went like this. You ran the card and generated the check, which you take to the customer to sign, then you go back, add the tip amount and the check is closed. You are not messing with the original amount, nor can you without a manager voiding the whole charge, in which case the card would have to be swiped again. So, what happened here is that the server (or whoever) entered a tip amount of $32.05. Unless this restaurant gives the server some capabilities that I have never seen or heard of. It is just like shopping at a store, they can’t change your amount without voiding the charge and swiping your card again. Now, if another guest left the server a tip for $32.05 then it is possible that your server was closing out two checks at once and mixed them up, but that also does not seem plausible, since the manager lied to you. Once, I was very, very busy and needed to run two credit cards, I apparently ran the same card twice and when the guest called just a few days later, saying there were two charges on his card, it was fixed immediately. We even knew the couple who ended up not charged at all but we couldn’t and didn’t contact them, expecting them to come back and let us charge them. It was an honest mistake but it was my mistake. Which leads to another point. There is no excuse for the manager to not have taken care of this immediately and I mean immediately after you called. There is also no excuse for him to have told you he changed the amount because he gave you the wrong check. I suppose their system could have a way to adjust an open check but I’m not aware of one that can be adjusted in price after the server has entered your tip amount, as I said, at that point the check should be closed in the system. One would also wonder why your check was left “open” in the system for 40 minutes after the card was first ran. Assuming you did not wait 40 minutes to sign your check and that the restaurant wasn’t terribly busy at 10 pm, why was the check left open that long? The restaurant chain I worked for looked at open check times for a variety of reasons but one being fraudulent activities. My thoughts would be either the server messed up the tip and the manager was covering for the server or they knew full well that they changed your tip from $9 to $32.05. Either way, there is no excuse for changing the amount of your bill, after you have signed for the original amount. That is illegal, wrong and unethical. I would not believe, nor trust them again.
Wow! I had something similar happen to me during a hotel stay on 3/26 as well! I doubt we were at the same hotel, but I certainly hope it wasn’t. I was charged for food at the hotel I was staying at when I wasn’t supposed to be. When I checked out, my balance was $0 and no mention of the food. A few days later, I’m checking my statement and I see a charge from the hotel for $40. It took 10 days for me to sort everything out. I held off on calling the CC company since I believed it was an honest mistake. I eventually got my refund, but it was a huge headache to keep calling back and forth and being told different things. Good luck with yours.
No, Derek W. Thomas, it should work exactly the opposite way. If this is a long term relationship with the property, they should be bending over backwards to reach out to their frequent customer. I would expect them to make some meaningful gesture to you not jerk you about. As they are clearly not interested in you, don’t have anything more to do with this other than report it to your credit card issuer and let them take care of it so that you at least get your account adjusted properly.