Riversage Billings Inn

Review: My family and I came to [redacted] to support a family member who was undergoing heart surgery. We chose to stay at the Riversage Billings Inn because of the proximity to the hospital and the room rate. When I called to make the reservation they asked for a card number to guarantee the room, which I provided. Upon arrival we were told they needed a copy of a debit card to "protect" us, the customer. My husband expressed his concerns about this practice, as we have a very tight budget, and we were assured it was just a copy and nothing would be done with it. We were also assured that it would get shredded, so my husband reluctantly agreed.

Our stay was pleasant enough, given the circumstances. However, when we arrived home I discovered our account to be overdrawn because of 2 preauthorizations for the same hotel room. We should have only had 130.40 taken out, but instead we had 2 transactions for that amount, one on 3/19 and one on 3/22 for a total of 260.40. This put us in the negative so I immediately called the hotel. I was told by the front desk staff that it wasn't their problem, that they had done their jobs, that they couldn't explain to me why that happened, and after going around and around with them I agreed (in frustration) to wait until Monday to speak to the manager. The front desk clerk, [redacted], said she had my information and would give it to the manager and have her call me.

I waited until noon on monday with no word from the manager and so I finally called them. As I was on hold with them my husband called to tell me his debit card had been declined and he could not put gas in his vehicle to either go to work or take my daughter to physical therapy. I told the manager that and she said they had done their job and could do nothing else to help us, they said they had released the hold that was put on our account by mistake, even though their mistake was still overdrawing our account. I then called my bank to find out what we could do. My bank requested a faxed letter explaining the error by the hotel and then the bank would reverse the charges immediatley.

I then called the hotel back to pass that along and ask that they refund our overdraft fees at the very minimum, but what we really wanted was a refund. The manager finally called me back and totally blew me off. Stating that it was the bank's issue and not theirs, even though the whole problem stemmed from the hotel double authorization our account.

Since I wasn't getting anywhere with the manager I asked to speak to an owner. The manager refused to allow me to speak to an owner. But did say that she would pass our info along and if, and ONLY IF, the owner was interested in helping us would we hear anything back.

By this time I am starting to feel like we are being blown off and our concerns about not being able to access our money because of their mistake is not being handled. The owner called back and said the same thing as the manager. Essentially, that this is our problem and the bank's problem now, not the hotel's and they certainly were not going to do anything to help us.

As of now, our bank still has not received a faxed letter from them and we still have no access to our money.

I informed the owner that when I hung up with her I was going to call the Revdex.com, attorney general, put negative reviews online, my lawyer, etc. she very rudely told me to "go ahead". Was not willing to help us at all.

We understand preauthorizing debit cards, where the bad business comes in is when we specifically expressed our concerns about that (because I gave my number on the phone and my husband let them make a copy of his when we checked in, all linked to the same account) and were assured it wouldn't happen, only to get home and find out that it did.

I only expected an apology, and a plan to fix it when I called the hotel but this has all spun out of control because we have no access to our money, have been charged overdraft fees, and the hotel is not at all willing to fix it by either paying our fees, refunding our money, or even sending a letter to our bank.

I have never filed a complaint before, but I have never been treated so terribly by a business before.Desired Settlement: I expect some sort of effort to make this better for us. Even if they don't refund our room fee for the 2 nights, I would like our overdraft fees refunded. All because they assured us only one card would be charged and they preauthorized both of them resulting in an overdraft that, as of today, has been showing on our account for 5 days.

If this is their standard practice, as they so often told me over the phone and after the fact, they really need to be upfront with their customers and not assure them all will be well when they KNOW they are going to double preauthorize someone. This seems very shady to me along with the fact that they made copies of our debit card , but not of the other 4 people who checked into rooms that night. That detail seems very interesting to me, and may point to why we are having this problem.

I think they made a mistake and they need to fix it.

Business

Response:

April 7, 2014