A tourist believes she was scammed at a popular Las Vegas hotel after she was hit with a $224 bill for using a power outlet in her room.
Sharina Butler, who is from the Bahamas, traveled to Sin City for vacation and stayed at the Paris Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip in August, when her son unplugged a tray acting as the room’s mini-bar to charge his phone.
However, they both failed to notice the tiny card next to the tray, which stated that the hotel would charge $56 for each day it remained unplugged.
“The writing on the tray is this small,” Butler said in a TikTok video, holding her fingers close together. “Why am I reading a tray when I’m not touching [the overpriced items]?”
At check out, Butler said a hotel employee informed her that she would be charged $224 — the total charge with taxes included for her four-night stay.
Shocked and confused over the charge, the employee presented Butler with a larger version of the note, which read: “‘Please refrain from unplugging the tray. If this occurs, a fee $50 will be applied,’” she said.
The tourist said the tray was next to a chair that most people staying in the room would want to sit in, and there was no note on or around the outlet indicating a charge for unplugging it.
Despite Butler’s attempts to reason with the hotel employee, she was told there was nothing that could be done to waive the charge.
“Ain’t no way. There is absolutely no way,” she recounted.
Butler said she refused to pay the additional charge, having already paid for the room.
“I blocked that card because there is no way you are charging me $56 to use a socket,” she said.
Butler’s post has garnered over 100k views since being posted in August and has received comments from others baffled by her experience.
“I literally just went through this at the Paris hotel,” one user commented. “I wanted them to remove the whole damn tray from the room and they told me it would cost me $50 to have it removed so I argued them into having someone come up to move it off of the desk (because I needed to use the desk to work) so it sat on the floor the whole time. It’s just another way for them to rip people off.”
“Tourism is dead in Vegas, they are trying to get money any way they can,” another user wrote.
“Vegas is desperate to swindle money from customers right now. That’s so messed up,” wrote another.
However, some defended the hotel, arguing the tray was plugged into a sensor that alerts staff if items are removed.
“Most hotels have charging ports on the lamps on the nightstands on each side of the bed or ports on the side of the nightstands. I work at the Bellagio and that is where ours are and more in the room. Never touch the tray it’s plugged up to monitor the items. Our place you can’t even reach the plug,” one user commented.
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