Hotel has taken £800+ from my account

[interrogate2018]

I've just returned from a European break we I had a 2 nite stay in a 4 star hotel. We paid cash at the end of my stay of €300 - only you discover that upon arrival at the last when I passed over my card for the €150 security deposit 2 debits of 400+ sterling was taken from my card.

My bank have given me the authorisation codes which I have given to the hotel and they are requesting more evidence! -

I'm so angry I could cry. The lady who checked me and my friend in also tried to overcharge us on Sunday by adding an extra 200 to our bill making it 500 only we challenged her - her response was that English was not her first language so sorry for mistake.

Even if the give me the money back it takes 10 working days - 😢

Also thanks you to the person who told me I'm now appearing on a reddit troll hunting site saying I'm begging or lying. As I said before I want advice not money and I'm not a liar - fairly saddening to be accused of it though.

And for the record - I'm trying to let the hotel sort it without giving them bad publicity just yet or get the person who made the mistake potentially fired.

Hope you get your money back soon. Let us know x

Your bank will have a fraud department

Who will, rightly, say that this isn't fraud.

OP went to a hotel. Hotel wants pre-auth for "incidentals" or to "guarantee payment". OP hands over debit card. They pre-auth their chosen amount, which sounds like the total stay cost (harsh, but Germany). That pre-auth will normally release either when the hotel releases it, if they have process to do that, when the customer settles their bill on the same card, or about ten days later. For the vast majority of customers this is correct, or in any event expected, behaviour.

The OP has hit the sour spot of (a) pre-auth on a debit card (b) paying by another means (c) not having the ability to front the pre-auth, which would be much less of an issue on a credit card. Unfortunate? Yes. Unexpected? Yes. Fraud? Not in a million years.

Moral: don't use a debit card to check in to a hotel until you are planning to pay on the same card when you leave.

Moral: travelling when you pay hotels and car hire companies direct, on anything other than a credit card, requires that you think about it in advance. Credit cards represent 99% of such businesses' retail work, and it's not realistic to expect them to figure out the effect on people who hand over Visa cards which aren't credit cards.

It isn't fraud. There's little the bank can do. The hotel has by the sounds of it behaved in a perfectly normal way.

I don't think it's normal to take 800 from my account without telling me - I wouldn't have agreed to it

Plus I told the lady at the desk it was a debit card - I wanted to make sure she could accept it.

It doesn't matter that this was a debit card.

OP; you just need to ask the hotel whether this is a pre-auth. It most likely is. That means they "hold" the amount owed; incase you do a runner or damage the room or fail to pay for things like room service or meals. As you've paid, the hotel will not claim the pre-auth and it will return to your account within a few days. That's why the bank cannot do anything yet; the money has not been claimed, just earmarked. The same as ASDA do when you order shopping online.

You don't need to do any grand complaints yet; and they won't help your anxiety. Just ask the hotel to confirm that these payments are a pre-auth and won't be claimed. If you let us know who you bank with, we can tell you how long it usually takes for them to be returned.

This is all pretty standard; which is why a credit card is a good idea - you don't 'notice' the preauth so much. But it's not essential and you'll be in the same position as normal shortly. This happens a lot when you travel.

I don't think it's normal to take 800 from my account without telling me - I wouldn't have agreed to it

Then they'd have asked for a cash deposit, probably for the whole stay. They probably haven't "taken" it, they have probably just pre-authed it. You've just discovered one of the problems with Visa-branded debit cards.

Plus I told the lady at the desk it was a debit card - I wanted to make sure she could accept it.

And she did, didn't she? Had she asked you your balance and whether you can afford the bill, you'd have been offended to? In any event, outside the UK debit cards aren't any different to Visa cards: the Visa network blurs the distinction so far as the merchant is concerned.

How many people do you think are checking in to four star hotels paying direct, but are also in a position where the pre-auth on the bill will leave them unable to pay their rent? They asked for payment the way they usually do: pre-auth the stay, release on payment or time-out. They got payment that worked. It's your responsibility to understand the implications of that.

Next time, pay the cash into your current account, which would probably have avoided all this. Paying on a different card, or by a different mechanism, to how you checked in will often leave consequences like this.

No- she asked for euro 150 security deposit nothing else - I couldn't and can't afford for them to hold 800 sterling of my money. My friend stayed last year in another branch of this hotel and had no such issues - I can't see how I'm wrong here?

Am I to understand that if I want a treat in a hotel in have to have the money in cash as well as in my account?

Also re the reference to how many people staying at a 4 star hotel will be unable to pay rent if 800 sterling pre-author from their account - you would really have to run a survey on all other less than affluent people staying somewhere nice as a once off !

This does sound odd, tbh - am in Germany and have stayed in plenty of hotels and I could only really imagine something like this (incl the cash payment on checkout) happening in a really small place, but you imply it's a chain. It sounds as if a mistake has been made over the amount and the number of rooms, and it possibly has something to do with the Visa debit card (debit cards here are 'EC cards' which is a different system AIUI). If I knew the hotel and city I could say more.

No- she asked for euro 150 security deposit nothing else

That will be, in many hotels, on top of pre-authing the bill. The security deposit is breakages, room service and mini-bar.

I don't deny there has been some mis-communication here, and perhaps they didn't explain properly, or you didn't hear in the noise in reception, or whatever. But it is absolutely common for hotels to pre-auth the room stay as well as taking a deposit for incidentals, and in fact in a lot of German hotels (Motel One is not alone in this, but is unusual in doing in the UK as well) you pay for the whole stay up front.

Am I to understand that if I want a treat in a hotel in have to have the money in cash as well as in my account?

If you are going to check in with a debit card, you need to have the money for the bill in your account, and pay with that card when you leave.

Or get a credit card.

What happened is that you checked in using a card against an account which contained your rent (or whatever), and the hotel pre-auth'd successfully because there was enough money in the account to cover the bill. It's neither their, nor the bank's, fault that you had that money earmarked for other things.

This is why I never understand the "oh, I don't have a credit card because it will get me into trouble" thing. I would never check into a hotel with my debit card for precisely this reason, and that goes double for the debit card on the account I pay bills from.

Where in Germany was this? Usually there is a "Verbraucherzentrale" in every state, which is a consumer advice centre. It might be worth contacting them but for that you'd need to google the one for the state you visited.

you would really have to run a survey on all other less than affluent people staying somewhere nice as a once off

Which will be a few percent of their business, and a way of shifting capacity on a slow night. The vast majority of their business is (a) business bookings via agencies (b) people travelling on expenses paying on corporate or self-owned credit cards (c) tourists travelling via voucher/package schemes and (d) people travelling on their own account paying via credit cards. Debit cards: tiny minority. Debit cards without sufficient balance: minority of that minority.

In Germany, all the more so, as Visa Debit cards for practical purposes don't exist.

YY to often paying upfront in German hotels. It's the faffy way this hotel appears to have done it I don't understand - a deposit plus a pre-authorisation plus a bill settled in cash on checkout. Not very efficiently German

Don’t worry about the redit troll thread....those ‘women’ are the biggest bunch of trolls on here.

£800 as a pre-auth sounds OTT to me and if that was the case the hotel surely wouldn’t be questioning it. I hope it is as the money will be back with you very quickly. In the meantime I don’t know what to suggest

It's the faffy way this hotel appears to have done it I don't understand - a deposit plus a pre-authorisation plus a bill settled in cash on checkout

Did they know on check-in that the OP intended to pay in cash on check-out? If not, it seems entirely reasonable: they pre-auth'd on the card presented because they assumed it was the card that would be used to pay the bill.

Germany at least takes cash. I've stayed in several hotels recently which say, up front, that they do not accept cash either at reception or in the bar. I would suspect that is going to become a lot more common: cash is a pain to deal with, and most hotels would be quite happy to see the back of customers who don't have cards.

Instead of wasting time crying here about it I'd be on phone over and over to the hotel and bank if you're in such a rush to get the money back you're wasting time on here

ReflectentMonatomism has explained it very well, read their post again

Anyway you probably booked with booking.com by the sounds of it, they are known for taking double the amount of what you're supposed to pay, I stayed in Germany last weekend and it didn't happen but it's down to each hotel but majority is with booking.com

Op don’t let it ruin the thoughts of the holiday and don’t feel badly about going. Sure you needed a break and those who are saying someone can just unexpectedly lose 800 without it being a potential or real financial disaster (at Christmas even more so!) are simply living a very different life and didn’t think before typing that their’s is an exception to what is the reality for most. (Bloody hell tortuous sentence !)

Next time read the T&Cs OP you'll find most hotels have the right to hold an amount prior to your arrival, avoid all this unnecessary panic

iLoveFoood have you read any of the thread?

This thread is getting funny.
'Complaints, fraud' the whole lot!

It's not fraud if it's standard practice and Jesus OP you really need to start reading the rules/ T&Cs when you book a place 😂 instead of getting all worked up

I know it's a lot of money to hold but you should have read into that before hand to avoid this happening and you could have taken the money out of your bank account so they couldn't hold it.

I've read the whole thing actually! But commented before I got to certain comments.

No i love its a transaction, it was booked under my friends name and I provided the debit card as Eur150 deposit was required. I find the fact that you find this funny nasty at best. the hotel were very aware of that fact that we were paying cash as we tried to pay it on checkin. thats when the deposit was requested, I thought in case we trashed the room or something.

Im not crying I came on here for advice and I have contacted the bank and hotel numerous times.

As previously stated, my friend stayed last year and there were no such issues.

From what Im reading here, Im basically being told Im stupid for thinking that I shoudl be able to trust a hotel to tel lme if they are taking money as a pre-auth etc from my account and that I should know that *4 hotels only deal with the likes of me on a minority basis to fill the rooms their "proper" clients arent using.

Sad tbh.