Evil Bills

[danaeris]

What do you do when a hotel charges your credit card for reservations you cancelled?
I have the cancellation numbers...

Do I call and argue with the hotel or the credit card?

Paying bills makes me Angry. I can't believe that the late fee on my cellphone doubles the cost of the bill. It makes me want to hit things.

I hate you all right now. Yes, you. All of you. The world just sucks. I will rain my vengeance down upon the earth. Oh yes, I will.

Addendum: That's it. I'm putting all of my bills on automatic payment wherever possible. However much they MIGHT stick me for by sneaking charges past me can't POSSIBLY be as bad as the late fees I'm paying when I forget.

Oh, and I still hate you all. Every last one of you. Now I'm going to clean my room/unpack. And I'm pissed off about it too. Because the world SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS.

Comments

[chaoticerotic.livejournal.com]

Hotel first,card second,and throw in Better Business Bureau threats!

[gerardp.livejournal.com]

I would actually do both. Call the hotel and give them the cancellation confirmation numbers. Also call the credit card company and say that you are "disputing" a charge to your card, then give them the hotel name (or the hotel's corporate name) and the date(s) of the charge(s).

[auros]

If the hotel agrees to refund the charge, disputing the original charge could end up meaning they'd given her a net payment, at which point she could be liable for defrauding them of the refund. Not a good idea.

[lyricagent.livejournal.com]

Call the hotel first to inquire about the mistake they might not even be aware of. If it's a big chain, most likely they'll realise their mistake and take care of it rather quickly. It's fabulous you have the cancellation- they usually can't argue with it.

If they do decide to be jerks about it, don't give it a second thought. Just thank them and hang up. Then call the CC :) Unless your CC is with some no-name bank, they'll take it off your bill until the dispute is resolved.

Remember to get the names of everyone you talk to in case someone gets bitchy.

My Advice

[neuroptik78.livejournal.com]

I used to work in the debit card claims department of Bank of America.

First, contact the hotel, to estabish that you attempted personal resolution of the problem. Immediately after speaking with the hotel, contact your credit card company, and notify them of the problem. You have a very limited number of days to file your claim. Usually, the dispute is resovled immediately by the offending party, i.e. the hotel, but if not, the credit card company will issue you an immediate temporary credit to your account for the amount claimed - 90 days from the date of the claim, judgement by the credit card will be issued, but will most likely be resolved naturally by the hotel.

[dicedork.livejournal.com]

I work for a restaurant and we get these contested slips all the time and it's just money that is written off.

Call your credit card company and contest the charge. You'll have to fill out a form, but that will be the last you deal with it.

Calling the hotel prior is mostly a courtesy.

[auros]

In terms of general getting-organized-to-pay-bills... You do get notices in either mail or email for each one, right? How often do you sit down with your stack of incoming mail, and go through to separate the junk from the stuff that matters? Establishing the habit of doing that every day -- when you come home from work, or just at some point in the afternoon/evening if you're not going out that day -- could take you a long way towards avoiding late fees. (It works for me. *shrug*)

hopefully

[(Anonymous)]

Hopefully this was already worked out for you. But what others have said is right: first, call the hotel. They're likely to fix it immediately. If not, remind them your next option is to tell your CC company to chargeback.

Then, call your cc company. I've had to use chargebacks against a couple companies. They hate it, but sometimes they need a nice slap. I was once employed at Netcom (one of the first dialup isps) and had an account that was switched from paid to comped, since I became an employee. I started using a bunch of extra disk space to hold tech-support related files, and they billed my cc like $400 for the disk space. Hah! I told our accounting department, and after 2 weeks of emailing them, I just called by CC company and told them to charge it back. The next day I got a call from accounting saying they'd reversed the charge and, 'please don't do chargebacks, it makes us look bad.' I, of course, replied that they should please not bill me a metric ton of money for an account that was supposed to be free, and told them to remove my cc information so it couldn't happen again.

A company that has a chargeback run against them pays a fee that's a lot like you paying a late fee -- it will vary based on their merchant agreement, but will often be $10-25. Depending on their agreement, they may even be out the transaction fee (the ~2.x% + $.29 or such per transaction) they paid to charge it in the first place.

Serves them right.

This is a good reason to have a bona fide credit card and NOT a debit card. Credit cards chargeback first and ask questions later; you never pay a disputed amount while a dispute is going on. With a bank card, you're out the money until things are resolved in your favor.