Microtel hotel in Massillon ohio

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I am just looking for advice from someone familiar with laws regarding hotels and unfair fees and practices.

We had a parent offer to book rooms last fall in Massillon and they looked into the Microtel hotel there. They reserved some rooms, and gave their credit card information to the person over the phone. They were told the usual regarding these rooms.....if the rooms were not claimed by a certain date they'd be opened up to the general public and it would not go on their credit card.

Long story short, they found a better deal at another hotel and told someone on the phone that they wanted to cancel the rooms at Microtel. A few weeks later a $1200 bill showed up on their credit card statement from Microtel. They called the hotel and Microtel said the guy that took their reservation no longer worked there, and that he was not authoriized to tell them the rooms would be dropped if no one claimed them, and that they'd have to pay the $1200 charge because no one came and stayed and they lost money because they were not notified and they kept the room booked.

These people on our team even called their creidt card company and they said since you gave them your card number you are responsible to pay the fee.

Scary thing there is every time I call and register rooms they ask for my credit card information. Most places will not let you book a block of rooms without CC information.

What I am looking for is any information as to how they can get out of this mess. It seems like a huge scam and rip off.

Is there a way out from under this mess? Has anyone else been in this situation and how did you get out of it.

Thanks in advance....

 

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First, this is one of many reasons that we do not usually book rooms on behalf of the team. Second, in the future if your team is trying to get a block of rooms together at a particular motel/hotel, tell the motel that you (or whomever is trying to get the block of rooms) want a fax or email providing the code and motel employee contact information for the block of rooms and confirming that no credit card will be charged except when an individual family calls and makes the reservation on its credit card. Motels need heads in bed and they will most probably agree to this, even though it may not be the motel's first "offer". The motel's first offer may require that someone provide a credit card for the block of rooms, but if you push back, it should usually result in an agreement that there will be a block of rooms that will be available for individual families to reserve and that any unreserved rooms in that block will be released on a date certain.

As to the odds of getting the money back, a call to the credit card company is not the same as filing a formal dispute of the charges. A formal dispute should be filed. A complaint with the BBB would also create some leverage. And there is always small claims court, where the family could file its own complaint or hire an attorney to do that. On the facts as presented, there would appear to be a claim of apparent authority of an agent of the motel to bind the motel to the terms and conditions that led your player's family to provide its credit card information. But any attorney who took the case would want to parse the facts further and I do not mean by my response to your post to create any attorney-client relationship or any reliance that the apparent authority of an agent theory would succeed. And the really bad news, of course, is that obtaining an attorney who would take this case would eat up in fees probably more than the amount at stake.

I feel for the family who got hit with the charge. This comes under the heading that no good deed goes unpunished.

 

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You should as CGS stated get a copy of a rooms contract when booking team rooms. At Marriott, products which there are ones for every budget, you usually have until 6 pm of the first night to cancel and they will auto send a cancel confirmation when you cancel. Now unless it's written in the contract for let's say a national tournament city wide events, there could be a penalty, but that would be previously stated in the room block contract. I have stayed in other brands of hotels that have stated such penalties, but they were captured in the contract.

Good luck!

 

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I think Microtel's should be avoided on the whole. We stayed at one in North Canton two weeks ago and all of our families were complaining it was UNCLEAN. I can understand normal wear and tear from being older and past due for a remodel, but no excuse for dirt.