Sharing a recent case:
I, along with my friends, had organized an event in a "Royal" Hotel of Ahmedabad last Thursday, which is apparently a five-star hotel.
Little did we know of the "Royal" and the "five-star" treatment we were about to receive.
We had agreed on Rs 700 plus taxes as charges on a per person basis.
Funny things started to happen once we proceeded to make the payment after the event.
We were first presented a bill with charges claimed for 27 persons. This was in spite of the fact that we were 25 in number. After some discussion, the Hotel authorities asked us to provide a proof that there were only 25 persons. Luckily we had a camera with us and we showed them some photographs of the event to validate our claim.
After further discussions, they agreed to revise the bill.
More of this in the attached mail.
Now comes the highlight of the day:
The bill included a line item: Service Charge.
We were asked to pay Rs 945 as the Service Charge (later revised to Rs 875 after bill revision).
We argued that service charge was not discussed or mentioned during our negotiations and therefore it cannot be forcefully imposed on us.
The Hotel Authorities remained adamant and made several fradulent claims. They first claimed that this is actually a tax and goes to the Government. When we pointed out that service charge is different from service tax, they then changed their statement and said that it is their discretion to fix any charge they deem fit and claim from us.
We again argued that service charge cannot be forcefully imposed on us, especially since it was not mentioned to us (and therefore not agreed to us) at the time of booking the venue.
However, our protests were of no avail and we had to pay the amount.
After returning back from the Hotel, I decided to dig into the subject of service charge a little further and after consultation with my friends, sent the following mail to the Hotel:
From: Kalyan Bhaskar
Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2013 11:37
To: Sales ahmedbad; dsm.rocahmd@royalorchidhotels.com
Subject: Unfair charges in bill
Dear ....,
We had an unpleasant experience during our event at Royal
Orchid on 28th February.
This included poor quality of service during serving the
food (e.g. delay in replenishing starters, repeated reminders for serving food,
and long wait for soup and rice once the food was served), as well as
during the payment process.
As per the Code of Conduct and Code of Ethics mentioned on
your website (http://www.royalorchidhotels.com/pdf/Code%20of%20conduct_ROHL.pdf),
“if Royal Orchid do not meet customer’s expectations, we will not expect
them to pay for the services rendered”.
Your actions of 28th February go against the
intent and content of the above code.
We were presented a bill initially which included charges
for 27 persons. This was in spite of the fact that we were only 25 in number.
The attachment sent to us by you had clearly mentioned charges to be on a per
person basis. However your staff insisted that it was on per plate basis and
kept on arguing for getting payment for 27 persons. It was only after we showed
them the photographs that there were 25 persons, and once they talked to you,
that they edited the bill.
Such attempts to mislead customers and produce false bills
leave extremely bad taste in the mouth of customers.
We consider such practices to be highly unethical.
We are more concerned about another line item in your bill:
service charge.
It was highly surprising for us to see service charge (Rs
945 initially; later reduced to 875 after editing the bill to make it for 25
persons) included in the bill.
There was a deficiency in your service standards, and
despite that you included service charge in the bill.
What was more surprising for us was the fact that we were
not informed of the provision of service charge at the time of booking.
I am attaching communication mails for your reference, and
you can observed that at no place does service charge finds a mention.
I am also attaching links to few newspaper articles and
websites, which clearly state that service charge is discretionary in nature
and forcefully imposing it on customers, especially without prior intimation is
illegal.
We had argued for removing service charge from the bill on
28th February, but we were disappointed at the response we got from
your staff.
We were first told that it is mandatory government process,
and then subsequently told that it is a management practice and that we have to
pay it anyhow.
Such business practices (false billing, attempting to
mislead customers, including arbitrary charges etc.) cast poor light on Royal
Orchid.
I therefore request you to look into the matter and arrange
to refund us the service charge amount immediately.
Your failure to do so would lead us to take legal
recourse against the actions which were arbitrary in nature and forcefully
imposed on us.
Regards,
--
We had made our mind to lodge a complaint in the Consumer Forum and had made this intention clear in the mail too. Within 24 hours of our mail, we got the following reply:
Dear Mr. Bhaskar,
Greetings from Royal orchid Central, Ahmedabad!
We apologize for the inconvenience caused to you and make sure you won’t
receive any complaints the next time you patronize us.
Also please advice where shall I come to refund the amount of Rs875/-
Please let me know if I may be of any further assistance.
Warm Regards,
Royal Orchid Hotels,
Opp. Gujarat College, Ellis bridge
Ahmedabad, 380006
Lessons from this experience:
1) Have a close look at the bill/bill items next time one makes payments at any Hotel/Restaurants.
2) If the charges agreed are on a per person basis, the Hotel/Restaurant cannot charge on a per plate basis.
3) Look for Service Charge in the bill and ask for it to be removed if it has been charged unfairly. Service Charge is different from Service Tax. While the latter is mandatory, the former is discretionary.
4) Even after payment has been made, one can recover unfairly charged amount if one takes up the matter convincingly with the Hotel/Restaurant.
5) Do not let Hotel/Restaurants mislead us.
and
6) Be alert: Jago Grahak Jago !!
PS: Some portions of the mail have been edited so as not to reveal identities.
