Wrong charge puts me overdrawn ...

HappyMike

Hi,
The story is: I booked a hotel through booking.com and was due to settle the bill at the property, rather than pay booking.com. The hotel took the money for the stay, but also, took 10 times the amount from my account. I can only assume it was accidental, and they have since refunded the amount.

This extra £900 went out of my current account - I only had a couple of hundred in the account at the time. I don't have an overdraft facility, but rather than "bouncing" the payment request, the bank gave me an unauthorised overdraft and have charged me a daily rate for this.


I was due to pay some bills that day and had to transfer money from other accounts to cover the overdraft and the amount of the bills. The bank say they won't refund the unauthorised overdraft charges.


At no time did the hotel ask to see my bank card, or ask me to enter my pin number.


Surprisingly, this i the 2nd time this has happened at this hotel, which is part of a chain of hotels - DoubleTree by Hilton.


So, how could Hilton take money out of my account without me needing to present my card and enter my PIN ? Is this normal?


Are banks allowed to just extend credit like this without asking the customers permission?


Should I expect the bank to refund the charges or do I have to pursue the hotel?


Thanks for your help,

Mike

[Deleted User]

10 times the amount?
Are you sure?
They usually pre-authorise the charges and also take an amount to cover room services and such which are kept as held/pending transactions on your account

[Deleted User]

Transactions can be done as cardholder not present (CNP).

Yes, banks are allowed to extend credit to cover transactions.

If Hilton erroneously took a payment, then any complaints around fees would go to them. Your bank had done nothing wrong.

eskbanker

You'll need to pursue the hotel rather than the bank - you could check the Ts & Cs of your account but it's perfectly normal for banks (at their discretion) to honour payment requests that'll take people overdrawn.

A reasonably reputable global hotel chain should be prepared to accept responsibility for evidenced charges caused by their error.

The hotel obviously got hold of your card details from somewhere, so if you didn't present it during your stay then this must have been via booking.com. Again you could trawl through Ts & Cs of such bookings but it certainly wouldn't be beyond the bounds of possibility that booking.com passed your card details to the hotel to secure the booking.

Perhaps worth using credit cards instead of debit cards in future, so that such mistakes are likely to impact the banks' money rather than yours?

spadoosh

Youre probably going to find in both sets of terms and conditions (the bank and the hotel) that theyre allowed to do this.

The hotel will argue something about a holding amount etc etc. And the bank will point you to the terms and condition of unauthorised overdrafts.

Maybe they arent covered so double check them all.

With that in mind i would take a whinge and complain approach to all 3 companies. Complaining to booking.com will almost certainly be very quickly diverted to the hotel but it makes it look like youre not going to let it drop. If booking.com fwd to the hotel it will encourage them to be more proactive as they wont want to cause problems between them and booking.com. The hotel, depending on the arrangements have taken a lot of money unneccessarily (or held it), so id be aiming at them for the bulk of the complaints.

The bank, id point out a good banking record (if youve got one) so clearly a mistake and customer service should warrant charges being removed. If they dont, thank them and mention theyll be getting the switching paperwork through shortly.

I think youll be relying more on customer service than on legalities of it. As in they might be covered. A good whinge and complaint highlighting your issues through social media can also be quite effective.

When i say whinge and complaint, articulate yourself well. Dont scream scam, stealing or anything along those lines. Humility and allowing them very easy outs can work wonders.

teddysmum

I don't believe that the bank is at fault so they should not have to cover the cost. It looks like a case of the hotel's employee,for whom the hotel has responsibility, pressing a '.' key in the wrong place (happened to me at Tesco but only times 10).

deadendwaterfall

eskbanker wrote: »

You'll need to pursue the hotel rather than the bank - you could check the Ts & Cs of your account but it's perfectly normal for banks (at their discretion) to honour payment requests that'll take people overdrawn.

A reasonably reputable global hotel chain should be prepared to accept responsibility for evidenced charges caused by their error.

The hotel obviously got hold of your card details from somewhere, so if you didn't present it during your stay then this must have been via booking.com. Again you could trawl through Ts & Cs of such bookings but it certainly wouldn't be beyond the bounds of possibility that booking.com passed your card details to the hotel to secure the booking.

Perhaps worth using credit cards instead of debit cards in future, so that such mistakes are likely to impact the banks' money rather than yours?

I thought it wasn't at their discretion, more rather that they are required to?

eskbanker

deadendwaterfall wrote: »

I thought it wasn't at their discretion, more rather that they are required to?

I'm not aware of anything that obliges banks to pay out in the event of insufficient funds, and there are various accounts where they make a point of not doing so, such as basic accounts, kids accounts and those with a 'control' feature.

If banks had to pay out in such circumstances, what would stop overdrafts just growing and growing ad infinitum if account holders just kept on spending regardless?

Ben8282

You say that you booked a hotel through booking.com and was due to settle the bill at the property, rather than pay booking.com.
Did you provide your debit card details to booking.com?
Have you actually completed your stay at the hotel? Your statement that at no time did the hotel ask to see your bank card or ask you to enter your pin number would imply that you have. However, this raises the question of how you believe that you had paid your bill in this situation. Did the hotel not present you with a bill? How do you imagine that you paid the bill? Did you not get a receipt?
If you have not yet stayed at the hotel, then why mention entering your pin?
I must express surprise that your bank would authorise a debit card transaction on an account with no overdraft facility which would put the account £800 overdrawn. It sems very odd to me.
The fact that it happened in conjunction with such a massive error by the hotel is even stranger.

Terry_Towelling

Did this really happen? The only way I can see a bank allowing you to go £700 into an unauthorised overdraft would be if the hotel never sought approval for the transaction (unlikely at £900) in which case the bank would be powerless to stop the transaction coming through.

As a general rule, if you are hit with a transaction you didn't make and incur charges as a result, I'd expect you to dispute the transaction with the bank and ask them to refund the charges too - although I accept you say it has been refunded meaning the central issue of the dispute is resolved.

My understanding of Booking.com is that they are simply a 'shop window' and, when using their system, you contract directly with the hotel. If you entered your card details then, that could explain how the hotel got them.

You also say the hotel took the money for your stay (plus this erroneous charge) and that you never presented your card at all during the stay. I don't understand this. Your stated intention was to pay the hotel directly, so what method were you intending to use to do this and why didn't you?

Chino

HappyMike wrote: »

At no time did the hotel ask to see my bank card, or ask me to enter my pin number.


Surprisingly, this i the 2nd time this has happened at this hotel, which is part of a chain of hotels - DoubleTree by Hilton.

I've stayed at that chain and it's not unusual - the hotel retains guests' card details on file, so on checking-out the receptionist asks if the bill should be charged to card ending XXXX, I say yes and whilst sometimes I'm asked to enter my PIN quite often I'm not.

HappyMike wrote: »

Should I expect the bank to refund the charges or do I have to pursue the hotel?

Perhaps morally it's the hotel that should reimburse you because it was their mistake that caused your account to go overdrawn. However, it might be easier to complain to the bank that you did not authorise the transaction (after all, you never used your PIN) so the bank should never have debited your account in the first place and consequently demand that it refund the overdraft charges. Undoubtedly the bank will reject this complaint so you can escalate it to the FOS.