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?
Yes, that’s crappy of them to take a deposit (which I assume is non-refundable) and then hit you with the fee that wasn’t mentioned.
Was it on any of the forms you printed out, signed, and mailed in?
That is crap. I try to make a habit of asking business people what the TOTAL amount of money will be coming out of my pocket by the time everything is said and done.
“So, if I sign up for this, the TOTAL amount of money coming out of my pocket and going to you will be how much by the time I leave the cabin?”
I’m not faulting you for not asking. I wonder what would happen if you threatened to cancel arguing bait & switch? Maybe they would try to charge you a cancellation fee. :eek:
You say you couldn’t print the online application form. You also say you need to sign a terms and conditions form. I suspect this fee would be on the latter form. Do you not have anything on paper?
Seems to me the agency fee is quite unethical if it is not revealed until after the deposit is made. I also question the damage waiver, since this outfit appears to be deceitful. Makes me wonder if you’ll even get to actually use the cottage.
GaryT, yes, I was able to print everything except the online form I filled out, but no, the fee was not on any of the forms.
Thanks everyone for making me feel like I’m not being unreasonable. I am going to contact them to ask why the fee is not disclosed earlier in the procedure.
$70 seems awfully steep for an “agency fee” whatever that means. Is it possible that it equates to a per-day fee or something? Maybe you missed it in the fine print because you’re expecting a $10 fee when it’s actually $10/day. Still seems like a ripoff either way.
Nope, the only mentions of any fees at all are the weekly rental price and the $40 optional damage insurance.
It was one of those ones where you answer one question then it goes to another page for the next one. I don’t have a printer on the computer I filled it out on, and I guess I figured that at the end there’d be some kind of summary or something that I could save or email or take a screen shot of or something, but there wasn’t so by then it was too late. I wasn’t too worried as it was pretty short and simple, just contact info mostly, and a radio button to approve or decline the damage waiver.
I went back through the form after finding out about the $70 to see if it was mentioned in there but it sure isn’t. I emailed the website and am waiting to hear back.
The “Fees” could be a reservation fee, a cleaning fee, a damage waiver all rolled together. However, these should be fully disclosed in a subsequent email or rental contract and whatever way it is presented you should know the full total by the time you enter your credit card information.
It is very common in the industry to charge a processing fee or reservation fee and they have been doing away with security deposits in lieu of damage waivers recently.
If you want to PM me–can guests do that?-- the web site I might be able to offer more information.
Thanks for all the help, everyone. I spoke with a rep from the website and she claims there was an error on their part. Whether she’s just covering up or not I don’t know, but it got me a nice discount so I am crossing my fingers that all goes smoothly from here on.