How does one skip out on a hotel bill these days?

[missypie]

It was on CNN.com that Randy Quaid's wife accepted a plea deal - the two were charged with skipping out on a $10,000 hotel bill. A few years ago, Lindsay Lohan's dad was arrested for skipping out on a hotel bill.

How does one even do that? Every place I stay, the hotel takes my credit card information. If I walked away, they would just bill my credit card. What I am missing here?

 

[lovesmurfs]

It was on CNN.com that Randy Quaid's wife accepted a plea deal - the two were charged with skipping out on a $10,000 hotel bill. A few years ago, Lindsay Lohan's dad was arrested for skipping out on a hotel bill.

How does one even do that? Every place I stay, the hotel takes my credit card information. If I walked away, they would just bill my credit card. What I am missing here?

I was wondering the same thing. When I worked front desk, the night auditor would check the pre-authorization amounts against the amount actually charged on the room each day, and increase the pre-authorization accordingly, based on the anticipated length of stay. Messages were left if the pre-auth didn't go through. Key cards can be recoded to make the guests' room keys no longer work and require a trip to the front desk.

 

[happygirl]

Everytime I have ever used a credit card to reserve a room. All I need is credit card number. I always pay with cash. So my guess is they used a credit card that didn't have any money on it. Told the front desk they were going to pay with cash at check out time and then just left. Or maybe they used there celebrity to do it.

 

[Deb in IA]

Maybe they didn't pay their credit card bill.

 

[missypie]

Maybe they didn't pay their credit card bill.

But then that's just not paying a debt. You don't get arrested for not paying your credit card bill (no debtors' prison these days!)

 

[Sgt Mickey]

I wondered the same. I am thinking maybe because of who they are they should be good for it or so the hotel thought.

 

[MickeySP]

They are celebrities so I am sure it wasn't even thought they would skip out.

I always pre-pay my stay these days but still leave a CC for incidentals. The only way I
have ever been allowed not to leave CC(it was stolen 2 days before trip) left $100.00 per day deposit.

 

[missypie]

I wondered the same. I am thinking maybe because of who they are they should be good for it or so the hotel thought.

Maybe the Quaids, but Lindsay Lohan's dad? About the only thing that made him any kind of celebrity at all was doing boneheaded things like getting in fights and skipping out on bills!

 

[NotUrsula]

A report that I read said that they were notified the morning after they checked in that their credit line had been declined. The wife claimed that there had been a fraud on the card and that the card company was sending them a new one, so the resort let them stay, and they spent pretty freely for several days, and then they just left without notice. She apparently claimed that she had made arrangements with the CC issuer to have the bill paid, but the CC issuer said that she didn't.

Celebrities tend to be trusted more than other people in situations like this, because the hotel figures that they are easy to find and that they won't want the bad publicity of being publicly dunned. Some celebrities will count on this, however, and hope that the prestige of having them for clients will make the business willing to eat the bill. That does work quite often, too, but when you pick the wrong place to try it, the embarassment is monumental. The cottages at the San Ysidro Ranch run between $900 - $2K per night, and they host celebrities all the time. Mrs. Quaid miscalculated if she thought she could intimidate this particular hotel into backing down.

 

[missypie]

I'm guessing that it involved stopping payment on the CC, claiming a dispute of some kind. She probably ran up an enormous incidentals bill for food, spa visits, etc., and then claimed to be dissatisfied with the hotel.
The various reports are saying that the Quaids claimed that the bill had been paid, so this had to be it -- she said that they had settled with the hotel, and the hotel said that they were still owed $10K.

And you can really be arrested for that? If I buy a stove at Sears then dispute the charge, can Sears have me arrested? I thought they could just ruin your credit. Sounds like if you don't plan to pay you should just not pay your credit card, instead of disputing the charge with the cc company.

 

[NotUrsula]

And you can really be arrested for that? If I buy a stove at Sears then dispute the charge, can Sears have me arrested? I thought they could just ruin your credit. Sounds like if you don't plan to pay you should just not pay your credit card, instead of disputing the charge with the cc company.

I changed my post because I researched a bit more carefully, my initial guess was off by a bit. Still, it WAS a dispute situation, or at least she claimed it was a dispute, but the credit card company didn't back her up on that; they claimed there was no legitimate dispute.

I think that a legitimate dispute and a bogus dispute are pretty easy to differentiate if you check the cc records. I also think that a dispute over $800 or so is less likely to cause a lawsuit than a dispute over $10K.

However, they were not initially arrested for failing to pay the bill; they were arrested for failing to appear for scheduled court dates.