Can I sue a foreign hotel?

StevenWickham

I need some advice guys. I recently had a weekend break in Amsterdam, booking a cheap hotel through Booking.com. The reviews were generally good so I risked it. It turned out to be terrible, and so I left a rotten review on their site and on Trip Advisor. I also gave the rude and unhelpful manager my annoyance as I left, and he refused to help me down the three flights of stairs with my heavy luggage.

Then three days later the hotel took 50 euros from my card which was lodged at the time of booking on the site, claiming I had damaged the shower door, (which was hanging loose when I arrived and nothing to do with me.) I have emailed and they refuse to refund. Booking.com has spoken to them and they still refuse to refund.

I believe this action was in anger at my reviews and my harsh words to the manager as I left.

Can I do anything about this?

Steven

poet123

Raise a dispute on your credit card. Send them the detail of why you suspect they acted like that and they should stop the payment. Take a screenshot of the review in case they get it taken down.

InsideInsurance

You can sue them, in the dutch courts but depending on your knowledge of dutch law you may need assistance which could outweigh the cost of any claim.

Of cause you could speak to your bank and say its an unauthorised transaction for the €50 but they may not agree with you given you admit to staying their and most hotels T&Cs are that payment method can be used for any breakages etc

richardw

InsideInsurance wrote: »

You can sue them, in the dutch courts but depending on your knowledge of dutch law you may need assistance which could outweigh the cost of any claim...

There's something called the European Small Claims Procedure.

InsideInsurance

richardw wrote: »

There's something called the European Small Claims Procedure.

My understanding was that it only applied for enforcement and so irrelevant to this case as the dutch courts have jurisdiction.

Ie if the issue arised here but the defendant was in netherlands then the process can be held here and ESCP can be used to recover the debt from the foreign party. In this case the claim is governed by dutch law tho

richardw

Here's a leaflet http://hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.uk/courtfinder/forms/ex725-eng.pdf

InsideInsurance

The leaflet isnt very helpful because in the two examples it saying the country where proceedings are issued are related to the place of the wrong. eg:

The French vendor of a motorbike can be sued in England if that is where the motorbike was due to be delivered.

It doesnt say that the UK person can sue here because its where they happen to live but explicitly because its where it was due to be delivered

TBagpuss

there was a recent case where the courts accepted that the UK court were the appropriate place to sue in a situation where a holiday had been booked in the UK via a UK travel agent - that case concerned a person killed while on an excursion from an Egyptian hotel - the court has held that as the holiday was booked in England, the widow can sue via the English court http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/10649117/Widow-of-leading-British-lawyer-seeking-compensation-over-limousine-crash.html

However, as previous posters have said, the simplest thing to do is to raise a dispute with your bank in relation to the charge.

zagfles

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Of cause you could speak to your bank and say its an unauthorised transaction for the €50 but they may not agree with you given you admit to staying their and most hotels T&Cs are that payment method can be used for any breakages etc

Really? I've never seen that in any hotel's T&Cs, can you give an example from a major hotel chain?