Hotel uses dodgy 'evidence' photo to back up $280 fee
A hotel has been caught out using an unusual tactic to charge a mum an additional $280 for her room.
Kelsey Russell was staying at the Holiday Inn at North Carolina with her mother and two-year-old when she was slapped with a bill for smoking, according to consumer rights group Elliott Advocacy.
Ms Russell claims she found out she’d had $280 deducted from her bank account days later and rang the manager. The manager informed her it was because the room smelt smoky and cigarette butts had been found.
The mum explained she doesn’t smoke.
“Why would anyone in their right mind smoke while sharing a room with a toddler?” she told Elliott Advocacy.
Ms Russell went to her bank to try and get the money back but was informed little could be done.
The mum had authorised the charge when she signed for the room and used her debit card on check-in.
However, Elliott Advocacy’s Michelle Couch-Friedman contacted the hotel for evidence Ms Russell had smoked in her room.
She was informed by a lawyer for the Holiday Inn that the company’s policy is to charge if there “is both physical evidence and smell evidence of smoking in the guest’s room”, adding Ms Russell had signed a document acknowledging this.
The statement included a photo of a coffee cup with cigarette butts inside as evidence.
Ms Couch-Friedman said she was sceptical of the evidence because the cup appeared to be on a desk and not in a hotel room. She labelled it “possible shenanigans”.
She added the photo’s metadata labelled the pic as “212 Russell smoking”. However, Ms Russell said she stayed in room 417.
“She says that no one in her group smokes,” Ms Couch-Friedman wrote.
“She had her baby with her in the room. I understand that there are times that guests smoke in rooms and then don’t tell the truth about it. That’s why it’s imperative for hotels to keep accurate documentation of any damage done.
“It’s a troubling trend that we’ve seen where franchise hotels charge for all sorts of damage — not just smoking charges — without any evidence at all. The evidence presented here is questionable.”
The lawyer wouldn’t budge though and said Ms Russell authorised the payment if the Holiday Inn staff had found evidence of smoking, referring to the coffee cup.
Ms Couch-Friedman added that the response didn’t include a receipt for the cleaning service.
She then went to the hotel’s parent company, the Intercontinental Hotel Group, in the hopes of getting the hotel smoking fee reserved. Ms Couch-Friedman included the coffee cup evidence.
It seemed to have the desired effect as Ms Russell received a call from the hotel’s manager informing her the $280 would be refunded as a “goodwill gesture”.
Ms Couch-Friedman labelled it “the correct resolution” and added anyone facing similar charges as the one Ms Russell faced to email the hotel and ask for an incident report and supporting documentation.
Yahoo7 News has contacted the Holiday Inn for comment.
