paid under protest at guesthouse last June -- still possible to demand money back?

tucan

Hey all,

I had a pretty unpleasant experience at a guesthouse last year. I had booked in myself, my fiancee and her parents for a two-night visit starting on a Sunday last June. I gave my debit card details when booking online and paid for the first night on arrival by cash. We were given one room facing the garden and another facing the street. Thinking about the parents first, we gave them the garden-facing room.

However, the noise in the street-facing room was unbearable. There was almost no sound isolation and there were busses constantly driving down the road throughout the night. My fiancee had an interview at her future (now current) lab on Tuesday morning and was quite anxious about being able to get any sleep. We asked the owner to change our room to one facing the garden, which we saw wasn't occupied. The owner told us there would be someone occupying it on Monday night and did not allow us to transfer because we had already entered the previous room, arguing that they would need to clean it although we hadn't touched anything in the room. We asked for our money back so we could move elsewhere but had this denied. After arguing it was past 11pm so we decided it wouldn't be feasible to start looking for another place for that night. We stayed overnight and decided to leave next morning. Needless to say, my fiancee only managed to sleep less than an hour.

When trying to leave the next morning we were stopped by the owners, saying that we were not allowed to leave until we had paid for the following (Monday) night's stay and threatening to call the police. I said I did not agree to pay since the room had not been of satisfactory quality (noisy) and not suit for purpose (sleeping), and I wouldn't be staying in it the next night. They argued that they had a 72h cancellation policy, so it was too late to cancel now. I argued back that the cancellation policy shouldn't apply if the service isn't of satisfactory quality. They then agreed to let us go if we paid for one of the rooms and told us they would refund our payment for the second room if they could find someone else to occupy one of the rooms that night (as expected, this never happened). They would deny us permission to leave the house until we paid. I then said I will pay only under protest. They took my debit card and wrote down all its details (including the security code). I requested to write "I pay under protest" on the paper with the details. They took the paper and hid it away, denying my request to write anything on the receipt.

After expressing my dissatisfaction the owners warned me that they have CCTV monitoring and photos of me, my fiancee and her family. They stated that they thought we were unpleasant guests and that if we published any negative reviews about our experience on tripadvisor they would publish our photos on-line and send them accompanied with a warning to all guesthouses in the city to prevent us from finding any accommodation there in the future.

I obviously was quite upset about this and felt very unfairly treated. However, we found a very nice hotel for the same price for Monday night and everything went well from there. Just after that we went on a 1-month trip around Europe with my fiancee's parents so I didn't follow up the problems with the guesthouse.

I was especially upset that they didn't allow me to type "paid under protest" on the paper with my bank details. Was this just naïve and would this actually have made any difference? Is verbally stating "I pay under protest" enough?

Can I still follow this up although it happened almost a year ago? If so, what would be my optimal next steps?

Thanks a lot in advance for any help!

dmg24

How many buses were there, surely they did not run constantly through the night? Sounds like you may be a tad oversensitive to noise.

fluffnutter

You wait for one, then 867 come at once....

tucan

dmg24 wrote: »

How many buses were there, surely they did not run constantly through the night? Sounds like you may be a tad oversensitive to noise.

Thanks for your reply dmg24. The room was overlooking a main road with buses to London every 15-30min throughout the night. We tried sleeping with earplugs but failed.

fluffnutter

There's a lot going on here... the disturbed night's sleep; the reluctance of the management to do anything (but could they?); the fact that they can't control external noise like buses and it might have been obvious that any hotel on that particular road would have problems with road noise; their threats about bad-mouthing you, or posting your pictures online; the paid under protest issue and whether that actually makes any difference.

One thing that does intrigue me though... why wait until now? As you say, this happened almost a year ago. Why have you only decided to try to pursue this now? I'd argue that something you've lived with for 10 months isn't really that big an issue...

Techhead_2

Can you clarify this:

There was almost no sound isolation and there were busses constantly driving down the road throughout the night. My fiancee had an interview at her future (now current) lab on Tuesday morning and was quite anxious about being able to get any sleep. We asked the owner to . . .


Perhaps its the way you've written it, but you say there were buses running throughout the night but somehow managed to complain about it before it happened. Do you mean you were worried the traffic noise would be too loud overnight?

Personally, I would not have been held to ransom. I would have not handed over my details and let them call the police. Who would have told them where to go.

ellay864

Presumably you knew where the guest house was? If it's on main route into London I'd expect buses as a minimum, and unless the hotel had stated there was adequate 'protection' ie decent double glazing I'd have checked before booking

tucan

Thanks for your replies!

Techhead wrote: »

Can you clarify this:
Perhaps its the way you've written it, but you say there were buses running throughout the night but somehow managed to complain about it before it happened. Do you mean you were worried the traffic noise would be too loud overnight?

That is right. We heard the noise level at 10pm. Knowing that the same buses would be running overnight (we had just taken one there) made us concerned, and at night we found that our concerns were justified.

I guess my fiancee's interview made her a bit more stressed than usual that night. However, even I did find it pretty loud and could hear the traffic even through earplugs.

Techhead wrote: »

Personally, I would not have been held to ransom. I would have not handed over my details and let them call the police. Who would have told them where to go.

I wanted minimal trouble for my co-travellers so I didn't want the police involved. Looking back and learning from the experience, this would have been a better solution.

ellay864 wrote: »

Presumably you knew where the guest house was? If it's on main route into London I'd expect buses as a minimum, and unless the hotel had stated there was adequate 'protection' ie decent double glazing I'd have checked before booking

This I should have realised.

fluffnutter wrote: »

There's a lot going on here... the disturbed night's sleep; the reluctance of the management to do anything (but could they?); the fact that they can't control external noise like buses and it might have been obvious that any hotel on that particular road would have problems with road noise

They were fully capable to move us in into their spare room that was facing the garden (but refused) and let us move out the next day without paying (refused as well).

fluffnutter wrote: »

One thing that does intrigue me though... why wait until now? As you say, this happened almost a year ago. Why have you only decided to try to pursue this now? I'd argue that something you've lived with for 10 months isn't really that big an issue...

I originally thought I would stand little chance to pursue because I didn't have any written proof of having paid under protest and gave up any hope about getting this sorted. However, I still remember this once in a while and feel quite strongly that we were mistreated. I saw something about only verbally "paying under protest" in the latest MSE newsletter that reminded me of this and gave me some hope of putting things right.

Freddie_Snowbits

Stay at the Dog and Duck, Brenda will give you a nice horlicks, wipe your botty and tuck you in. And it is too late for a charge back, which would be reviewed.

geri1965_2

I very much doubt you will get any money back now. Nothing to stop you reviewing it on websites though.

arcon5

Post a bunch of negative reviews as mentioned above.... then email all the links to the owners