Can I just qualify how much are you talking about.

Steve

If it were me I would be asking the credit card company for a copy of the signed credit card receipt to show that I had made or authourized the charge.

While the criminal action was taken by the hotel the CC company has a responsability to only pay legitimate and authorized bills.

This was the hotel employee, not the hotel. This is no crummy establishment:

Hotel Tarifa - Beach Hotel ARTE VIDA TARIFA - hotel y alojamiento en Tarifa

The transaction was authorised, by chip and PIN.

I've already offered to write a letter in Spanish. What more can one do?

__________________
How much does a man live, after all?
Does he live a thousand days, or one only?
For a week, or several centuries?
How long does a man spend dying?
What does it mean to say “forever”? - Pablo Neruda

Thanks for this kind offer. There is a reservations email address on the web by which I imagine we might be able to get hold of the address of the management. Unfortunately I don't have a name or useful description of the employee, other than he is a he. I don't have a receipt - I tried to ask for one - but of course if this chap was setting me up then he wouldn't have given one even if he did understand what I was asking for. BUT I have found that I do have a hand written invoice which in the extreme should be able to be used to identify who the employee is.

Stretcher Monkey I shall like to take you up on your offer of assistance and I will contact you further about this off-line. Many thanks.

Noel.

I can't help wondering that even if I did have a receipt, that the hotel or employee could simply argue that the receipt is for the credit card transaction and not for a cash payment....?


Yes Sjoerd, I've certainly learned that lesson. The crazy thing is that I obviously did have enough cash on me - but not much more - so I only chose to pay by credit card because I wasn't sure when I'd be sure of being able to get hold of some more cash... In future I plan to hide a certain amount of cash on the motorcycle somewhere to be there only for real emergencies - if I'd done this then I am sure I wouldn't have worried about settling in cash in the first instance.

Noel.

Thanks for your support. I will in the first instance be taking Stretcher Monkey up on his offer of writing to the hotel in Spanish. If ultimately nothing comes of it then this could indeed be useful if not fun.

Noel.

Euros 82.50 (£68.89) - a useful amount of money, but I guess it's the principle of the matter that is more important.

Noel.

This is a legitimate credit card transaction - chip and pin, so there is no disputing that. What I do dispute though is (a) that I was told that the transaction didn't go through and/or (b) that I didn't receive the goods and services for the transaction - I am not sure where the law stands on that one?

Noel.

Thank you everybody for your responses to my posting. Initially my thinking was that I'd simply have to take this on the chin as experience, and posted here only as a warning to fellow travellers, and hey if just one of you didn't stay over at the hotel given this HUBB thread, then it would be the hotels ultimate loss in short changing me. I guess my first reaction was to blame the hotel, but perhaps to begin with blame should only be pointed at the employee as we have yet to know what response the hotel management will have. I know this isn't the right attitude but initially I was simply going to let this one go, but with all the feedback which I've had on this thread I at least owe it to all of you to take this one step further (which I shall do with the offer of help from Stretcher Monkey), and hope that before too long I'll be able to post back with better news.

Many thanks, Noel.

I have on occasions had a cc transaction "not go through" - I don't know the reason, nor do I care particularly - that's technology for you.
In every case, the operator of the cc machine has run the card through the machine again to show a negative "cancellation" transaction for the same amount of currency.

Yes, they do negative as well as positive transactions.

__________________
Dave

When I read the account of a decent guy being embezzled by an moron in a hotel in Spain, there are a few things that come to mind.
To carry around big amounts of cash is dumb and asking for trouble. To try to pay everything with a card is also not convenient. The best is to check before hand, and I am pretty sure the owner of the hotel in question is not happy with this. The answer is not to be an easy victim, and it all comes down to who outsmarts who. Never trust anyone. Of cause it helps to speak the language. When I came to Las Palmas, Islas Canarias, for a shipping company, the food at the hotel was below standards, and among the crew of five or six I was the only one fluent in Spanish, so I let out a few less civilized remarks. Next we got permission to eat somewhere else. What I mean to say is that they will try to see if you are soft enough to screw you. Be nice, be civil, but don´t be a pushover.

An update to the folks who have been following this thread... Thanks to help from StretcherMonkey from the HUBB who has very kindly translated letters from me into Spanish, and replies from Hotel Arte Vida into English, the hotel management have been in discussions with their bank and agreed that a transaction could show up as failed on their machine if the connection to the bank is lost at a critical point in time, yet the transaction at the bank side can be completed as successful - they assume that this must be what has happened and offered their apologies and refunded accordingly. So the power of the HUBB has I am sure not for the first time been excercised - many many thanks to StretcherMonkey for his time and effort and apolgies to Hotel Arte Vida for shaming them where it appears that I have jumped to the wrong conclusions too soon...

Happy Travels, Noel.

Good result, Noel. It pays to persevere!
Stephan

only just seen this thread, but i know the owner of this hotel [he does in fact, own a number of hotels and properties in tarifa] and he is a particularly fair and very accomodating guy.
i know i'm new on here, so none of you know me, but when i say this hotel and its reputation is top drawer, then believe me, it is respected as one of the top hotels in tarifa.
i am sorry to hear that you had problems with the hotel, but also glad you got it sorted in the end. i deal with hotels alot in tarifa for very large group bookings and know only too well, how easy it is for mistakes to be made. perhaps, it would be better to discuss things with the owner directly, rather than naming and shaming, before and dialogue has been entered into??
always a shame for the customer to get hard done by, but equally unfair to tarnish a reputation without opportunity to compensate...
my 2 cents... hope your experiences dont put you off going back to tarifa, as it is a fantastic place to spend a few days!