Hotels are charging customer a five hundred dollar fee if a smoking sensor determines that you have smoked in your room. But do smoking sensors actually work and work reliably? They might. Maybe? I must once again confess that when a juicy $500 fine can be gotten for a false positive — I can’t help but feel there are going to be lots and lots of false positives. It gets taken directly off the credit card. Five hundred free bucks and you didn’t even have to use a gun.
The article says you should use Google reviews and see if they have a lot of customer complaints for smoking fines and then don’t stay there if you see them.
I have a better idea. How about our wimpy, unenergetic, corporate owned news media do investigations, find out if these sensors work, and expose hotels who steal from their customers?
That is what is supposed to happen? Why isn’t it happening? Could it be all the advertisements bought by hotels? Could it be the sympathy from another capitalist operation, you know, a sort of honor among thieves code??
I suppose for many of the powers that be and our pitifully corrupt ruling class, stealing an extra five hundred from a customer is just another yawn. Just another common man or women giving up some more money to their betters. They’d have probably bought beer or high sugar food — or any of those other justifications the wealthy have for sneering at the rest of us.
I don’t think so. Taking people’s money under false pretences is wrong. And no amount of babble about the reliability of the technology when it isn’t proven is going to make it right.
It’s a crime. It’s theft and it should be investigated and prosecuted.
If they have evidence these sensors actually work, why don’t they show it? And exactly what costs do they bear to justify this fee?
If you don’t mind me saying so — It all smells.
Please read the article linked to below. It is written by Caleb Harmon-Marshall. He is apparently quite the up and coming young author.
Imagine checking out of your hotel room, confident that everything went smoothly, only to find a $500 non-smoking fee charged to your credit card. No warning, no evidence, and no actual smoking. That’s the reality for dozens of travelers staying at hotels using air quality monitoring systems from a company called Rest.
Welcome to the latest hospitality tech trend that’s costing travelers hundreds of dollars, and it could happen to you.
In addition, here is a very fine article from Consumer Rescue about the immense difficulties involved in getting a smoking charge reversed. It is by Michelle Couch-Friedman.
https://consumerrescue.org/travel-troubles/how-get-hotel-smoking-fee-refunded/
Getting a surprise hotel smoking fee reversed isn’t easy — even if you’re a non-smoker like Kelsey Russell. Or a determined consumer advocate. But it can be done. Here’s how.
Kelsey’s case is yet another story that illustrates a disturbing trend that seems to be developing in the franchise hotel industry. Increasingly, we’re receiving complaints from guests who say these branded properties have hit them with an array of surprising post-stay charges — no proof included. But, as you’ll see in this case, even when the hotel provides “evidence,” it might just lead to more questions than answers.
This turned out to be a lengthy piece and a very good story. You should read it. And I have to admit it gave me a very good first impression of “Consumer Rescue.”
Beware of strange charges after spending the night at a hotel or other such venue.
James Alan Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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