In December 2011 I booked on the secured web site of the hotel for a stay in July 2012.
My credit card not being valid after February 2012, the hotel asked me a new card number as a garantee, which seems quite normal.
The problem is that they asked me to communicate my new card number by mail or by fax, that is to say in a non secured way, because as anyone knows, any third party could steal the number and rush to empty my bank account...
So I proposed to send what we call in France a "virtual" card number given by my bank, directly linked to my bank account, valid only for one use and only for the amount chosen by the card holder : by this means I proposed to pay full payment immediatly, but the hotel refused, arguing that they would not be able to make a refund if necessary.
I tried to explain that they would be able to make a refund, as my bank positively told me. But all my explanations were useless, the hotel sticked narrow mindedly to its demand.
I deeply regretted the waste of time (many mails), and had to find another hotel (which I did succesfully).
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
30 January 2012
The financial security of our clients and business is of the utmost importance to us and is never something we would want to compromise. Nowadays, it is especially necessary to take precautions to protect both us and our customers. Our policy is designed to ensure no fraudulent transactions take place.
In this case, as such a large amount of money was being considered we had to be very firm with regard to our regulations. We do not ask to take any money straight away- we only ask for a number of a card which has an expiry date later than that of the date of departure from the hotel. This is so if there were to be a cancellation or a refund requested, we can return the money to the original credit card, safe in the knowledge it is going back to the correct person. In the past, we have had requests from customers that we return money to a different credit card as theirs have expired and these cases have turned out to be scams. As we hope you can appreciate, from our point of view to have to do this would be very suspicious.
We were especially apprehensive as we were given four different credit numbers from one customer, demanding we take full payment 7 months in advance when we only ask for a credit card number as a means of guarantee before taking payment nearer to the time.
It is regrettable that our precautions have been considered unnecessary as they are in the customers´ interest. We cannot state more clearly that our wish is to never compromise the safety of our customers and we do what we believe is right in order to protect the hotel and its guests.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused to the client - it is rare for a hotel to lose custom for being overly cautious. We thank you for your interest in our hotel and hope to see you in the future.
With best wishes
Andrea Ysasi
Hotel Manager
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This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC
