We reserved a rental home with Florida Royale Villas in Florida. About a month before we were supposed to leave, we had to cancel our vacation so I called and cancelled. They never secured a deposit from our credit card so that should have been the end of it.
About one week before the vacation would have taken place, our online banking statement showed that Florida Royale was trying to authorize the full amount of the rental. I called Florida Royale and was told that that they hadn't received our cancellation but that they would cancel it immediately and that they would not charge us. My wife sent them an email that day, following up and reiterating that we wanted to cancel the vacation.
Incidentally, this was all within the cancellation guidelines that Florida Royale publishes, as I am in the Army and cancellation is free up until the day of rental.
The same day, I called my bank to make sure that the money wasn't coming out. I had to register a complaint while I was at it so that they could refund me the money if it turned out to be a fraudulent charge.
Two days later, Florida Royale took the money anyway. This led to a series of overdrafts from our bank account. I called the manager immediately and was assured that the money would be refunded. I told her that I wanted them to pay our overfraft fees as well. She asked that I fax a copy of my bank statement to them and that they would look into it. I sent the fax promptly.
Several days passed before they refunded the rental amount and I did not hear anything concerning the refund of the overdraft fees.
Finally we received an email saying that we did not cancel the rental until after the money had been removed and that they would not pay for the overdrafts.
I had to wait for a few weeks to get a copy of our phone bill to refute the comapnies stance that we didn't cancel until after the money was taken. We have a copy of the phone bill and have compared it to our bank statement and see that several phone calls were made to the rental company before the money was taken out.
So, I'm going to email Florida Royale one more time and see if they want to refund us the overdraft fees. If not, we'll hand this over to our lawyer. Either way, we'll keep this updated.
Jonathon
Kansas City, Missouri
U.S.A.
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