Unauthorised Credit Card Payment - Where do I stand?

amnesiaiom

Hi, I'm hoping that someone can clarify where I stand legally with a credit card payment that has been taken from me by a French Hotel.

I stayed in the hotel a couple of weeks ago and left my reading glasses. They notified me and asked from my card details to post them to me. I stupidly gave them out expecting them to quote me how much. But they haven't and they've sent them by a special next day courier service costing £48.

As I never gave authorisation for the exact amount am I able to contest the payment, or is the fact that I gave over my card details enough for the hotel to hold me to the payment?

I don't want to cancel the payment with the bank and get into trouble!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as the glasses aren't worth £48 and if they had quoted me the price first I would have asked for them to dispose of them!

grumbler

To me it looks similar to paying for petrol at a pump when you pre-authorise any amount the petrol can cost after you fill the tank.

It was you who failed to ask about the amount, and I don't see any grounds for the chargeback.

Mr_Goodkat

Think you could be struggling here, I know hindsight is a wonderful thing but you shouldn't have given them the credit card details until you had a price from them.


I know you didn't expressly give permission for the amount it cost but you provided the card details to pay for the cost of return without questioning cost, timescale or method. To me you implied they had permission to charge the card for the cost.


I don't think a charge back would work.


It might be worth enquiring with the courier to check the cost of the service they used i.e. did they just pass on the cost or did they add something on.


Once you know that raise a complaint with the hotel and see what they will do as a gesture of good will given either they charges the courier amount without advising it or added something onto the courier cost.


£48 for International next day secure courier to get you glasses back to you intact and quickly doesn't sounds too expensive to me but if you have spares etc and happy for it to take longer / risk damage then you could have got them back a lot cheaper.


Complaint to the hotel and lesson learnt is the only answer here I think

amnesiaiom

Thank you!

Yeah that's kind of what I thought, but wanted to check just in case.

A slap on the wrists for me... I've definately learnt my lesson!