9 ms·

There has got to be a way to penalize companies for attempting this kind of thing. Even just removing the charge without discussion isn't enough, as some people

by lxgr 1y ago

There has got to be a way to penalize companies for attempting this kind of thing. Even just removing the charge without discussion isn't enough, as some people will be traveling on a corporate card they don't necessarily monitor closely, will confuse the charge for something else etc. Otherwise, I'd love to be able to preemptively and without any prior communication charge (way in excess of the room rate, of course!) hotels for broken appliances, poor cleanliness etc., and put the burden of proof that everything was fine on them.

hansvm 1y ago
The big problem is the power imbalance. There's a reason they start your stay by putting a hold on a credit card. And even if you could charge them, they can afford a legal battle better than you.
- lxgr 1y ago
  Oh, that's a common misunderstanding, but they can't sue me in court – by accepting me as a customer, they accepted my binding arbitration agreement! It clearly said so on my luggage tag their authorized agent (i.e. the bellboy) handled as part of check-in.
  - Der_Einzige 1y ago
    This is exactly the kind of subversive stuff I live for.
    - refulgentis 1y ago
      Live for? Or fantasize about? :) It's a fun fantasy, but the fact we're happy to see it highlights our impotency - even a line worker sympathetic to the power imbalance would be left at "Anyways, we'll charge the fee to your card on file"
      - lxgr 1y ago
        I wonder if there's a business model for a "robo-lawyer" paired with a travel agency here: "Stay at one of these hotels using this credit card issued by us, sign this contract promising that you won't smoke there, and if the hotel tries anything funny, we'll reward you with the room rate back and a bonus" :)
        altairprime 1y ago
        The company that issues cards to be provided to phone phishers understands this perfectly :)
  - nine_zeros 1y ago
    >Oh, that's a common misunderstanding, but they can't sue me in court – by accepting me as a customer, they accepted my binding arbitration agreement! It clearly said so on my luggage tag their authorized agent (i.e. the bellboy) handled as part of check-in. Why can't there be a human membership union that sets these automatic binding arbitration agreements on service providers on behalf of members? Is there any law preventing a class of people from creating such a customer's union?
    - vkou 1y ago
      > Why can't there be a human membership union that sets these automatic binding arbitration agreements on service providers on behalf of members? Those already exist, we call those things 'governments'.
      - idiotsecant 1y ago
        I think we got some wires crossed somewhere, my government is helping them beat me up more ...
        cyanydeez 1y ago
        That's because another group of people made a pact with the devil, and a third group just shrugged their shoulders when everyone had a chance to nullify that pact....
        vkou 1y ago
        It takes constant vigilance to prevent that union from being captured by management.
        bmitc 1y ago
        That's a great analogy. Government = worker's/consumer's/people's union. Management = capitalism/corporations.
        1y ago
- newAccount2025 1y ago
  Can’t you do a charge back? Isn’t this a key kind of protection that credit cards give you?
  - yubiox 1y ago
    Only if you want to get banned from ever staying in a hotel again
    - criley2 1y ago
      Obviously charging back Hyatt won't get you banned from Hilton. And the response question would be: Why would you returned to a hotel chain that scammed you?
      - sixothree 1y ago
        Because that's where you job books when you travel?
        lxgr 1y ago
        Then that sounds like the employers problem, though. Hopefully they audit their expense accounts for stunts like that.
        WaxProlix 1y ago
        So they check the bill and see that you incurred a $500 fine for smoking in the room they paid for? How does this help :(
        redserk 1y ago
        At some point the question is: "Do we trust the employee we've had on the books for the last few years". Fortunately, the mid-sized places I've been at generally trust the employee's story when it comes to expenses -- at least unless it becomes a pattern. If my workplace took the hotel's side for a bogus charge, I'm not sure I'd want to stay working there...
- grishka 1y ago
  Do hotels in the US not allow you to pay with cash any more? What if you don't have an internationally accepted card?
  - jmb99 1y ago
    Generally speaking, no. Most major hotel chains require a credit card.
    - SoftTalker 1y ago
      Credit card is a proxy for an acceptable credit score. It's a filter so they can exclude irresponsible people without exposing themselves to claims of discrimination or racism. Unfortunately people who simply choose to live without using credit are caught up in that too.
      - RandomThoughts3 1y ago
        You can easily book at big chains in the US as a foreigner despite having no credit score whatsoever so I don’t think that’s it. I guess it’s probably just that a having credit card and an id card ensure that they won’t have trouble charging you if they need to. The possibility alone is probably enough to deter most people who could be tempted to commit petty things like stealing towels.
      - lxgr 1y ago
        I’ve seen some hotels actually take out an authorization hold for the deposit. That can be done on debit and credit cards.
      - maccard 1y ago
        In Europe, UK and Ireland it’s not an actual credit card - a debit card is perfectly acceptable and normal.
        disgruntledphd2 1y ago
        Although it's better to use a credit card if possible as they put a rather large hold on it, which can wipe out your balance.
- torlok 1y ago
  Is this a US thing? I stay at hotels from time to time across Europe, and I always pay a fixed price either when booking or at arrival for the whole stay. Never had to enter credit card information anywhere, and I never would precisely for this reason. I put my credit card information once when booking a car at an airport and was scammed with random scratches being found at return. Can't imagine ever going through that again. One of the worst and most infuriating money exchange experiences in my life.
  - ericmay 1y ago
    No, it's a common practice in most western countries and can confirm for you a list of a dozen or more hotels ranging from $100/night to $1000/night that do this in countries ranging from Ireland to France to Japan. It's really no big deal and is extremely common. In fact, France as I discovered does this at the gas stations where they put $200 or so authorizations on your card for absolutely no good reason. There are various scenarios but I think the one you are thinking of is you show up to the hotel, hand them your cash, and pay at the desk. Often times, though I have not been in a hotel that will not ask for a card, they ask you for a credit card and put an authorization on there in case you smoke in the room, or maybe turn it into spaghetti or any other random incidentals. An authorization is basically the hotel telling the credit card that they're "reserving space" so to speak on your credit limit on the card. Regarding your rental car experience, that's a common scam and again moreso seen in Europe, but not really anything to do with the method of payment. They would have just mailed you a bill for the damages instead. I guess you could ignore it.
    - seszett 1y ago
      > France as I discovered does this at the gas stations where they put $200 or so authorizations on your card for absolutely no good reason. It's the same here but I'm not sure how it could work another way? They have to make sure you have the money to pay for the fuel you're pumping, it doesn't seem weird to me. I can't imagine a pump that allows you to pump as you wish and then just begs you to pay. That works for the manned stations with low traffic only.
- blibble 1y ago
  what power imbalance? obviously if you give them cash deposit there's not much you can do, but with a credit card you can easily dispute the transaction I always pay my bills in full and on time, but if a merchant tries giving me the run around I will simply dispute the transaction and then the pain moves entirely to them with a credit card the power imbalance is entirely in the consumer's favour
  - account42 1y ago
    This is the theory but in practice vendors can an often do retaliate by refusing to do business with you until you pay up - and since competition is barely existing in many instances that's going to be much more pain for the consumer than a credit card dispute is for the vendor.
abtinf 1y ago
Seems like a candidate for class action lawsuits against the hotel, the brand, and the sensor company?
- mindslight 1y ago
  Class action lawsuits are a boon for corpos. They take what should be many separate instances of fraud with unknown unknowns and tie them all off in one small garbage bag. Half the money goes to the attorneys and the other half is a token payment or even just funds a coupon to encourage doing more business with the perpetrator. I'd really like to see some service that facilitates you opting out of a class action, and then comes in later representing you for your own individual case (at scale) based on the implicit admission of wrongdoing from the settlement plus documenting actual damages.
  - yladiz 1y ago
    Was it necessary to make your point in a very snarky manner? Edit: For context, the first sentence of the version I commented on was "You do realize that class action lawsuits are a boon for corpos, right?", which comes across as quite snarky. It was edited at some point.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      Yes, I edited it out. You were right, and I figured it better for the conversation to just not start off with that phrasing. Sorry for not seeing a way to make that apparent while also not growing accidental complexity.
  - bdangubic 1y ago
    good luck with that lol
  - wcunning 1y ago
    There was a big thing about this a few years ago -- companies didn't want class actions (too expensive in lawyers, primarily), so they forced binding arbitration agreements into their EULA. Then a big law firm filed thousands of binding arbitrations on behalf of what was basically the class. The company had to pay $1000's/arbitration in fees to the arbitration company, which also didn't have an incentive to reduce the number of arbitrations when the company tried to get out of it. Turned into an incentive to not put binding arbitration clauses in agreements...
mindslight 1y ago
It's called the criminal justice system, specifically the longstanding laws against fraud. But it requires effective government to implement, and government has been becoming ever less effective at such things (it tends to give corpos a pass based on diffusing responsibility rather than properly charging everyone involved with criminal conspiracy) Another pillar of the problem is the corpos having excepted themselves from basic libel/slander laws through the "Fair" Credit Reporting Act. The common response should be one round of "piss off, prove it", with then a high barrier for the fraudster to substantiate such a debt in a court of law. Instead people are put on the defensive by the thought of such lies going on their permanent surveillance records, and perhaps becoming some kind of problem in the future.
dangoodmanUT 1y ago
Yes it's called a lawsuit for defrauding consumers. Hopefully someone actually does it though
- pyman 1y ago
  I'm sure the hotel will blame the company that sold them the sensors, and the company that built them will blame some developer who changed the sensitivity value from 6 to 8. Everyone will act shocked, the developer will get fired, and the new revenue stream will be called "customers who visited adult websites on a shared private network." I doubt that will end up on TikTok :)
bgilly 1y ago
There is a way. Don’t give them any of your money.
- mindslight 1y ago
  So now the debt they claim you owe is partially valid... (Yes, I'm being obtuse. In response to a simplistically obtuse point)
pluc 1y ago
> There has got to be a way to penalize companies for attempting this kind of thing Yes, don't go to them. Love, Canada
chrismsimpson 1y ago
Yeah, it’s called regulation and consumer protection.
ysofunny 1y ago
> put the burden of proof that everything was fine on them. as if they need more incentives to surveil everything
mvdtnz 1y ago
In most countries there would be no wondering if there are ways to penalize the companies. This is flagrantly against the law in most of he civilized world and it wouldn't last 5 seconds.
make3 1y ago
Well, if you had kept Lina Khan at the head of the FTC and not elected Trump, the country could work on continuing to improve consumer protections.
xkq4hiupload 1y ago
This is what the federal consumer protection board was created and designed for, but now all of that has gone when this administration fired them and closed it.

by lxgr 1y ago

hansvm 1y ago

The big problem is the power imbalance. There's a reason they start your stay by putting a hold on a credit card. And even if you could charge them, they can afford a legal battle better than you.

lxgr 1y ago
Oh, that's a common misunderstanding, but they can't sue me in court – by accepting me as a customer, they accepted my binding arbitration agreement! It clearly said so on my luggage tag their authorized agent (i.e. the bellboy) handled as part of check-in.
- Der_Einzige 1y ago
  This is exactly the kind of subversive stuff I live for.
  - refulgentis 1y ago
    Live for? Or fantasize about? :) It's a fun fantasy, but the fact we're happy to see it highlights our impotency - even a line worker sympathetic to the power imbalance would be left at "Anyways, we'll charge the fee to your card on file"
    - lxgr 1y ago
      I wonder if there's a business model for a "robo-lawyer" paired with a travel agency here: "Stay at one of these hotels using this credit card issued by us, sign this contract promising that you won't smoke there, and if the hotel tries anything funny, we'll reward you with the room rate back and a bonus" :)
      - altairprime 1y ago
        The company that issues cards to be provided to phone phishers understands this perfectly :)
- nine_zeros 1y ago
  >Oh, that's a common misunderstanding, but they can't sue me in court – by accepting me as a customer, they accepted my binding arbitration agreement! It clearly said so on my luggage tag their authorized agent (i.e. the bellboy) handled as part of check-in. Why can't there be a human membership union that sets these automatic binding arbitration agreements on service providers on behalf of members? Is there any law preventing a class of people from creating such a customer's union?
  - vkou 1y ago
    > Why can't there be a human membership union that sets these automatic binding arbitration agreements on service providers on behalf of members? Those already exist, we call those things 'governments'.
    - idiotsecant 1y ago
      I think we got some wires crossed somewhere, my government is helping them beat me up more ...
      - cyanydeez 1y ago
        That's because another group of people made a pact with the devil, and a third group just shrugged their shoulders when everyone had a chance to nullify that pact....
      - vkou 1y ago
        It takes constant vigilance to prevent that union from being captured by management.
        bmitc 1y ago
        That's a great analogy. Government = worker's/consumer's/people's union. Management = capitalism/corporations.
        1y ago
newAccount2025 1y ago
Can’t you do a charge back? Isn’t this a key kind of protection that credit cards give you?
- yubiox 1y ago
  Only if you want to get banned from ever staying in a hotel again
  - criley2 1y ago
    Obviously charging back Hyatt won't get you banned from Hilton. And the response question would be: Why would you returned to a hotel chain that scammed you?
    - sixothree 1y ago
      Because that's where you job books when you travel?
      - lxgr 1y ago
        Then that sounds like the employers problem, though. Hopefully they audit their expense accounts for stunts like that.
        WaxProlix 1y ago
        So they check the bill and see that you incurred a $500 fine for smoking in the room they paid for? How does this help :(
        redserk 1y ago
        At some point the question is: "Do we trust the employee we've had on the books for the last few years". Fortunately, the mid-sized places I've been at generally trust the employee's story when it comes to expenses -- at least unless it becomes a pattern. If my workplace took the hotel's side for a bogus charge, I'm not sure I'd want to stay working there...
grishka 1y ago
Do hotels in the US not allow you to pay with cash any more? What if you don't have an internationally accepted card?
- jmb99 1y ago
  Generally speaking, no. Most major hotel chains require a credit card.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    Credit card is a proxy for an acceptable credit score. It's a filter so they can exclude irresponsible people without exposing themselves to claims of discrimination or racism. Unfortunately people who simply choose to live without using credit are caught up in that too.
    - RandomThoughts3 1y ago
      You can easily book at big chains in the US as a foreigner despite having no credit score whatsoever so I don’t think that’s it. I guess it’s probably just that a having credit card and an id card ensure that they won’t have trouble charging you if they need to. The possibility alone is probably enough to deter most people who could be tempted to commit petty things like stealing towels.
    - lxgr 1y ago
      I’ve seen some hotels actually take out an authorization hold for the deposit. That can be done on debit and credit cards.
    - maccard 1y ago
      In Europe, UK and Ireland it’s not an actual credit card - a debit card is perfectly acceptable and normal.
      - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
        Although it's better to use a credit card if possible as they put a rather large hold on it, which can wipe out your balance.
torlok 1y ago
Is this a US thing? I stay at hotels from time to time across Europe, and I always pay a fixed price either when booking or at arrival for the whole stay. Never had to enter credit card information anywhere, and I never would precisely for this reason. I put my credit card information once when booking a car at an airport and was scammed with random scratches being found at return. Can't imagine ever going through that again. One of the worst and most infuriating money exchange experiences in my life.
- ericmay 1y ago
  No, it's a common practice in most western countries and can confirm for you a list of a dozen or more hotels ranging from $100/night to $1000/night that do this in countries ranging from Ireland to France to Japan. It's really no big deal and is extremely common. In fact, France as I discovered does this at the gas stations where they put $200 or so authorizations on your card for absolutely no good reason. There are various scenarios but I think the one you are thinking of is you show up to the hotel, hand them your cash, and pay at the desk. Often times, though I have not been in a hotel that will not ask for a card, they ask you for a credit card and put an authorization on there in case you smoke in the room, or maybe turn it into spaghetti or any other random incidentals. An authorization is basically the hotel telling the credit card that they're "reserving space" so to speak on your credit limit on the card. Regarding your rental car experience, that's a common scam and again moreso seen in Europe, but not really anything to do with the method of payment. They would have just mailed you a bill for the damages instead. I guess you could ignore it.
  - seszett 1y ago
    > France as I discovered does this at the gas stations where they put $200 or so authorizations on your card for absolutely no good reason. It's the same here but I'm not sure how it could work another way? They have to make sure you have the money to pay for the fuel you're pumping, it doesn't seem weird to me. I can't imagine a pump that allows you to pump as you wish and then just begs you to pay. That works for the manned stations with low traffic only.
blibble 1y ago
what power imbalance? obviously if you give them cash deposit there's not much you can do, but with a credit card you can easily dispute the transaction I always pay my bills in full and on time, but if a merchant tries giving me the run around I will simply dispute the transaction and then the pain moves entirely to them with a credit card the power imbalance is entirely in the consumer's favour
- account42 1y ago
  This is the theory but in practice vendors can an often do retaliate by refusing to do business with you until you pay up - and since competition is barely existing in many instances that's going to be much more pain for the consumer than a credit card dispute is for the vendor.

abtinf 1y ago

Seems like a candidate for class action lawsuits against the hotel, the brand, and the sensor company?

mindslight 1y ago
Class action lawsuits are a boon for corpos. They take what should be many separate instances of fraud with unknown unknowns and tie them all off in one small garbage bag. Half the money goes to the attorneys and the other half is a token payment or even just funds a coupon to encourage doing more business with the perpetrator. I'd really like to see some service that facilitates you opting out of a class action, and then comes in later representing you for your own individual case (at scale) based on the implicit admission of wrongdoing from the settlement plus documenting actual damages.
- yladiz 1y ago
  Was it necessary to make your point in a very snarky manner? Edit: For context, the first sentence of the version I commented on was "You do realize that class action lawsuits are a boon for corpos, right?", which comes across as quite snarky. It was edited at some point.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    Yes, I edited it out. You were right, and I figured it better for the conversation to just not start off with that phrasing. Sorry for not seeing a way to make that apparent while also not growing accidental complexity.
- bdangubic 1y ago
  good luck with that lol
- wcunning 1y ago
  There was a big thing about this a few years ago -- companies didn't want class actions (too expensive in lawyers, primarily), so they forced binding arbitration agreements into their EULA. Then a big law firm filed thousands of binding arbitrations on behalf of what was basically the class. The company had to pay $1000's/arbitration in fees to the arbitration company, which also didn't have an incentive to reduce the number of arbitrations when the company tried to get out of it. Turned into an incentive to not put binding arbitration clauses in agreements...

mindslight 1y ago

It's called the criminal justice system, specifically the longstanding laws against fraud. But it requires effective government to implement, and government has been becoming ever less effective at such things (it tends to give corpos a pass based on diffusing responsibility rather than properly charging everyone involved with criminal conspiracy) Another pillar of the problem is the corpos having excepted themselves from basic libel/slander laws through the "Fair" Credit Reporting Act. The common response should be one round of "piss off, prove it", with then a high barrier for the fraudster to substantiate such a debt in a court of law. Instead people are put on the defensive by the thought of such lies going on their permanent surveillance records, and perhaps becoming some kind of problem in the future.

dangoodmanUT 1y ago

Yes it's called a lawsuit for defrauding consumers. Hopefully someone actually does it though

pyman 1y ago
I'm sure the hotel will blame the company that sold them the sensors, and the company that built them will blame some developer who changed the sensitivity value from 6 to 8. Everyone will act shocked, the developer will get fired, and the new revenue stream will be called "customers who visited adult websites on a shared private network." I doubt that will end up on TikTok :)

bgilly 1y ago

There is a way. Don’t give them any of your money.

mindslight 1y ago
So now the debt they claim you owe is partially valid... (Yes, I'm being obtuse. In response to a simplistically obtuse point)

pluc 1y ago

> There has got to be a way to penalize companies for attempting this kind of thing Yes, don't go to them. Love, Canada

chrismsimpson 1y ago

Yeah, it’s called regulation and consumer protection.

ysofunny 1y ago

> put the burden of proof that everything was fine on them. as if they need more incentives to surveil everything

mvdtnz 1y ago

In most countries there would be no wondering if there are ways to penalize the companies. This is flagrantly against the law in most of he civilized world and it wouldn't last 5 seconds.

make3 1y ago

Well, if you had kept Lina Khan at the head of the FTC and not elected Trump, the country could work on continuing to improve consumer protections.

xkq4hiupload 1y ago

This is what the federal consumer protection board was created and designed for, but now all of that has gone when this administration fired them and closed it.