Hostel charged me £500 after leaving

planteria

i didn't jump to the conclusion that this was anything other than a genuine request for help..
i'll be interested to hear what Action Fraud have to say.

nivea wrote: »

It can quite often be the case that as soon as you threaten legal action against a business, that business willl no longer converse with you directly, but will hand the matter to their legal advisers.

The legal advisers will now be waiting the legal action you have threatened before responding to the court who will send you a copy.

Lesson learned here should be not to go around making threats you are not prepared to carry out. You know what you need to do.

...is good advice. i have some legal issues going at the moment, and i tend to try to deal with as much as i possibly can myself, and then when it is with lawyers: lawyers speak to lawyers, and i am out of direct contact.

Mr_JE121

The booking was for a bed in a hostel, I paid a 12% deposit online and the remainder was due on arrival - I did not stay at the hostel and so I was charged the full amount for the first nights stay which is fair - I am not disputing this (around £7.00)

But why would I be charged £500 a few days later! I don't understand how it can be an error becuase it would require an employee to physically input my details and charge my card.

CBU2004

Lith wrote: »

If it's only... £7.00... why the hell couldn't you just pay in cash or pay with a debit card?

Brother just got back from a Euro Trip, stayed in many hostels, really cheap too. They all asked for credit cards to be kept on file to charge for damages (if any happened).

I had to hand over a cash deposit once at a hotel which I got back in the end providing there was no damage.

Only reason I can think that they asked for this. If not then maybe the OP had no cash to hand and just a CC.

jonesMUFCforever

OP can you confirm you did not damage the hostel in any way?

adindas

The OP is creating a new ID just to post this complain. All four if his posts are just about this ...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search.php?searchid=156301226

I do not understand the OP post here what is he expecting from this forum. This is clearly a fraud why do not he just reports it to the action fraud squad

http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

With £500 and potentially other victims I fully believe that the action fraud squad will take it seriously ...

dzug1

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

OP can you confirm you did not damage the hostel in any way?

He says he was a no show at the hostel

BillJones

Mr_JE121 wrote: »

But why would I be charged £500 a few days later! I don't understand how it can be an error becuase it would require an employee to physically input my details and charge my card.

I suspect that the reason that the room was cheap was that they'd contracted to supply you, or your body parts, to their local "associates", and were left out of pocket when you (or your parts) were not available, so they had to recoup their lost money.

planteria

i think gwape has a point. and i can't think of a circumstance in which i would make a Personal purchase (as opposed to a business purchase) on a Debit Card rather than a Credit Card...accepting that i always have plenty of CL available.

gwapenut

I think for dubious merchants where cash is not an option or inconvenient (eg advance booking), then prepaid cards can be a sensible precaution.

Vortigern

planteria wrote: »

I can't think of a circumstance in which i would make a Personal purchase (as opposed to a business purchase) on a Debit Card rather than a Credit Card...accepting that i always have plenty of CL available.

You might use a debit card when a merchant does not accept CCs
...or when they would impose a surcharge on CCs