Royal St Charles Hotel

Review: I booked a room at the Royal St. Charles Hotel for Sunday October 27, 2013 on priceline.com. I paid for my room in advance. When I got to the hotel they charged me an additional $9.95 "resort fee" and held an additional $50.00 on my debit card which as of October 30 has not been refunded. When I called the hotel to find out why, I was connected with the "General Manager" who was of no help. She could not explain to me why the $50 dollars has not been refunded or what it was for. She took my information and email and said she would contact the accounting office and call me back. When she did, she had the same vague information about the missing $50 as before. She sent me an email showing me the $9.95 charge on my account which she said she "copied and pasted". The problem was that no transaction for the $9.95 shows up on my bank account... only a charge for $50.00. She still refused to give me any information and wanted me to send her copies of my bank records. Before I could refuse or agree and was even more confused, she accused me of shouting at her and hung the phone up. I never shouted. When I called back and asked to be connected to someone to file a formal complaint on this "general manager", the desk clerk connected me to a woman who doesn't even work for the hotel but works for an outside company that makes reservations. I believe I deserve an apology from this business for their extremely poor customer service and this extremely smart mouthed and rude individual handling their affairs and hidden fees. They had no right to charge me an additional $50 for a room I had already paid for under the guise that it would be refunded when I checked out. I want my $50 back and I want to warn other potential customers about this business so they won't be treated as I have been! I travel to New Orleans on a regular basis and have stayed at many hotels there and have never been treated this was by any other hotel.Desired Settlement: $50.00 which they withheld from my account under the promise it would be refunded at the time of check out as well as an apology for the the way the General Manager and desk clerk treated me.

Business

Response:

Good Morning -

I am in receipt of the complaint assigned ID # 9784960.

I received a call from Mr. [redacted] on Wednesday, October 30th regarding charges he stated were on his credit card account. The charges that Mr. [redacted] were claiming did not show in our reservations system, however, I did explain to Mr. [redacted] that what was showing on my end was a $50.00 authorization on his account that the hotel ran the day of his arrival. Of the $50.00, only $9.95 was used by the hotel to cover the published "value added package" fee. The unused amount of the authorization, $40.05, was released or should have been released from his account.

I asked Mr. [redacted] if I could call him back in a few minutes after investigating the issue in further detail with our Accounting department.

I was able to obtain additional info from accounting which was sent to Mr. [redacted] and discussed with him upon my return call.

Mr. [redacted] stated that he did not feel the info provided was valid as it was cut & pasted from our system. He stated "anyone could have just typed this".

I asked Mr. [redacted] if he could send a copy of the charges from our hotel which showed on his credit card account, without disclosing his other personal information.

Mr. [redacted] became very upset, stated "you're not listening to me, you're not understanding what I'm saying to you". He began to shout at me and berate me.

I asked Mr. [redacted], "what further can I do to resolve this as quickly as possible". " We will do whatever it takes to resolve this."

At this point in the conversation, there were staff members in my office who could hear Mr. [redacted]'s yelling and I told him that "I am not going to be yelled at, have a nice day, goodbye".

Please see attached documentation of charges. Also note that the guest's credit card account number has been blacked out for security purposes.

Sincerely,

General Manager

Royal St. Charles Hotel

Phone: [redacted]

Email: [redacted]

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID 9784960, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

The General Manager is not telling the truth. I never "berated" her or shouted. I had someone in the room with me as well and she was on speaker phone. She shouted at me and hung up the phone because she was not willing to explain why I have not gotten my $50 dollars back. I WILL not tolerate this highly unprofessional woman attacking my character. Because of this I feel I deserve a complete refund for my stay at the Royal St. Charles Hotel. I would also like contact information for the owner of this hotel so I can file a formal complaint against this manager and her staff for the way they have treated me.