Elret
03-24-2009, 11:08 AM
I'm feeling a little uncomfortable about a fee I've been charged, and am hoping for some perspective.
Most summers my family goes camping, tent and sleeping bags style. Since the birth of our first child three years ago, we generally go to a family-type campground where you tend to have a lot of close neighbours. We're now expecting again, so we decided to rent a cottage this summer instead to spare other campers the nightly newborn serenades. It's a fair bit of a splurge for us compared to what it costs to go tenting, but we shopped around for several months and finally found a cottage that really suits our needs perfectly.
It's being rented over a website that is dedicated to renting cottages in the specific geographical area we're interested in. The procedure is, you fill out an online application form including a credit card number which is charged with a 30% deposit, and you print and sign the terms and conditions, which is mailed with a post-dated cheque for the balance. Within a day or two, someone from the website calls you to make a final confirmation.
So we did all that, and after our phone call, received an invoice by email. It showed the 30% deposit having been paid, and detailed what was still owing. There was the balance of the rental fee that I had expected, plus a $40 charge for a damage waiver plan that I thought I had declined (but I hadn't been able to print the online form so I will take their word for it that I had agreed to it) and a $70 "agency fee" that I had never heard tell of before.
I went back and scoured the website in search of some mention of this "agency fee" but there was nothing. I had assumed that the website made their money through the cottage owners (who I assumed in turn built the cost into the weekly rental amount) and it seems sort of shady to me to spring this new fee on me after they have my credit card number and confirmations.
Am I being unreasonable to think that this fee ought to be mentioned up front?
Most summers my family goes camping, tent and sleeping bags style. Since the birth of our first child three years ago, we generally go to a family-type campground where you tend to have a lot of close neighbours. We're now expecting again, so we decided to rent a cottage this summer instead to spare other campers the nightly newborn serenades. It's a fair bit of a splurge for us compared to what it costs to go tenting, but we shopped around for several months and finally found a cottage that really suits our needs perfectly.
It's being rented over a website that is dedicated to renting cottages in the specific geographical area we're interested in. The procedure is, you fill out an online application form including a credit card number which is charged with a 30% deposit, and you print and sign the terms and conditions, which is mailed with a post-dated cheque for the balance. Within a day or two, someone from the website calls you to make a final confirmation.
So we did all that, and after our phone call, received an invoice by email. It showed the 30% deposit having been paid, and detailed what was still owing. There was the balance of the rental fee that I had expected, plus a $40 charge for a damage waiver plan that I thought I had declined (but I hadn't been able to print the online form so I will take their word for it that I had agreed to it) and a $70 "agency fee" that I had never heard tell of before.
I went back and scoured the website in search of some mention of this "agency fee" but there was nothing. I had assumed that the website made their money through the cottage owners (who I assumed in turn built the cost into the weekly rental amount) and it seems sort of shady to me to spring this new fee on me after they have my credit card number and confirmations.
Am I being unreasonable to think that this fee ought to be mentioned up front?