Over charged by Ibis hotel, Liverpool

mummy2astinkybubba

Hi, this is my first time posting here so apologies if in the worng place. I visited Liverpool on Saturday as my daughter was starting uni there and I accompanied her to help with all her luggage. As I live on the south coast, its a long journey, in fact I left the house at 5am and reached Liverpool at 4pm. I had booked a hotel for myself and had a return ticket for the next day. Dropped off the daughter, had emotional goodbyes and checked into my hotel, the Ibis styles. Lovely staff, very freindly, paid the balance due for my room and after settling in I checked my bank account and found to my horror that an extra £204 was missing. It said that the amount available to withdraw was just £5. Just £5 left in my acccount and there was no record of who had taken it as it had only come out that day. I went down to reception and asked if they had possibly charged me twice or made some mistake but they assured me only one payment had been taken out of my account. So there i was, no money for food or drink apart from the £5 and feeling pretty miserable.
I made sure the next day to eat as much as possible from the free breakfast as it was going to have to last me until the evening.
So this morning (monday) I rushed to the bank to see what had happened, the hotel had taken out a payment of £204 at 8am on the saturday and then the payment of £174 (the correct amount)at around 6.30pm when i had arrived. The bank advised to call the hotel who said they had no record of any payments and could i send a copy of my statement by email showing the amount overcharged. It still hasnt come up as a transaction on my statement so I called the bank to see if they could email the proof to me to send him. They couldnt until it shows on my statement which could be up to 7 days.
So here i am stuck in limbo with no money for up to 7 days. All my wages for the month gone, my car insurance direct debit went back unpaid because they have taken this money and to top it off they have ruined what should have been a nice weekend.
So not a happy bunny, have sent a complaint email to Ibis but doubt that will do much good, dont know if there is anyone else i can contact or wether i just have to wait it out for a few days with no cash . Really disapointed in what i presumed to be a trustworthy hotel chain.

JReacher1

Sounds like they may just have authorised an amount against your account. This locks the funds and mean that you can't withdraw the money. It should release itself in a couple of days.

Obviously very inconvenient for you.

Of course if it does turn up on your transactions then they have overcharged you!

geerex

Top tip: always use a credit card when staying at hotels.

mummy2astinkybubba

Ah, thats interesting, they might have authorised my account then, in case i didnt pay or something. Just looked it up and been reading about it. Fingers crossed thats what it is and it will unlock in a day or two. I wasnt aware of all that. Learn something new every day!

Yes defiintely will use a credit card next time, (if there is one) keep it all seperate from my bank account. Cant be doing with all this again!
I guess if there is a positive note...i lost a bit of weight over the weekend from the lack of food!

fatpiggy

£174 for a night in a hotel? Wow. My parents dropped me at the local railway station and 10 hours later I arrived and got a taxi to my halls of residence.

Hope it gets resolved soon.

Buzby

It was a shadow charge - it reduces any available balance bus is not an overcharge or Bill for services. It automatically drops off and is no different from using a Pay at Pump facility when driving. Don't use a debit card in future.

daytona0

fatpiggy wrote: »

£174 for a night in a hotel? Wow. My parents dropped me at the local railway station and 10 hours later I arrived and got a taxi to my halls of residence.

Hope it gets resolved soon.

Haha tell me about it, the Ibis is generally around a mid price range of 80-90 a night for a single room but that is mainly due to it being near a posh part of liverpool (the albert dock) so the OP may well have been mugged off unless they had more than one person.

Don't expect anything less from a person from South East though! There is no way that they'd rough it out in a 40 quid a night double room b+b in kensington/outskirt areas and a 4 pound day rider bus ticket for the city centre (which is ironically probably closer to most of the liverpool universities and waay cheaper!!) :rotfl:

rustyboy21

For that price, you could have stayed in the Hope St Hotel, right by the Uni buildings and student area.


Stayed there in one of their suites, wooden Bath on a mezzanine floor overlooking all the skyline. Big sumptuous beds, Bose system, rainfall shower all for £83 B&B.


Worth a try next time OP.

photome

OP hope it gets sorted BUT £174 for 1 night.....how come

lammy82

Sorry if this sounds judgemental, but if you don't have any emergency funds, savings, or access to further cash once your current account is depleted, then that is called 'living hand to mouth', and anyone who is in this situation but willing to shell out £174 for one night's stay in a hotel is really living beyond their means.

Maybe I have misread the situation and there is an emergency fund but the problem was simply the inability to access it for some reason, in which case the advice would be to make sure you always have access to your emergency fund, because you might need it in an emergency!

LilMissEmmylou

In the OPs deffence, perhaps there were little to no rooms left at the time she booked due to LOTS of parents of students coming and staying in the city while the kids settle in or because of travel constraints. Meaning she had no choice but to take what room was left.

It does sound a lot for the Ibis though