A woman in the US was left horrified after discovering that her hotel in Las Vegas added a surprise charge onto her bill which tripled the fee.
When content creator Jocelyn Harper decided to visit her sister in Sin City to celebrate the US holiday of Labor Day (1 September), she decided not to splash out on one of the many luxurious hotels which line the strip, instead forking out a more reasonable $200 (£154) for one night at the Westgate Las Vegas.
However, her plan to cut costs would backfire horribly when she was handed her final bill at checkout – and discovered an extra $566.90 (£437) smoking fee had been tacked on.
Jocelyn Harper had chosen to stay the Westgate Resort as it was cheaper than hotels on the strip (AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
Furious to see her bill essentially triple in price, Harper took to TikTok to call out the hotel and urged her followers not to stay there.
“Do not, do not stay at the Westgate resort,” she said in the clip. “I wanted a quick, easy place to stay that has a tram to the strip, something not too expensive but pretty nice… it looked fine, looked good.
“I check out and I have a 500-dollar smoking fee. I don’t smoke.”
Guidance on the website for the Westgate explains that it is a non-smoking hotel and that any guests who are believed to have lit up in their room will be charged an additional fee for extra cleaning.
Absolute trash experience at the @Westgate Las Vegas #scammeralert #vegas #fraud
♬ original sound – Joce Travels
However, Harper has since disputed this, claiming that she not only doesn’t smoke, but wasn’t in her room at 6:15pm (which is the time in which the smoke detector was allegedly triggered).
She went on to add that she had disputed the fee with the hotel’s front desk, only to be told ‘there is nothing we can do’ by the manager on at the time.
She also shared screenshots from TripAdvisor users who were claiming the exact same thing happened to them during their stay.
Harper has since spoken to Newsweek about her experience, revealing that she has been refunded by the hotel and given a complimentary two-day stay after going viral online.
“It was extremely stressful to lose almost $600 like that. I was really upset,” she explained.
The content creator has since been refunded after going viral (TikTok/travelingwithjoce)
While Westgate Resorts Las Vegas is yet to comment on the story publicly, the CEO of the company who supplies the smoke detectors has since hit back at her claimed the room would have been ‘unquestionably smoked in’ in order to trigger the detector.
“The room was unquestionably smoked in,” FreshAir Sensor Jack O’Toole told Newsweek.
“This technology has been proven in court and through peer-reviewed scientific articles. The Smoking Alert is scientific proof of smoking.”
