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When planning a vacation, travelers typically spend large amounts of money to make sure that everything goes smoothly so they can focus on enjoying themselves. One of the ways travelers make their vacation care-free is by booking at an all-inclusive resort, such as the Sandals Resort in Montego Bay. Recently, an American couple hoping for a stress-free stay at Sandals had their dream vacation turned into a nightmare. Using her TikTok account, Alex Robinson described how Sandals ‘scammed’ her and her husband during their stay last year in December.

The video, which has received approximately 1.7 million views, was posted on May 11th and is Robinson’s latest effort to get the matter resolved. She and her husband have been waiting for five months for a solution to being overcharged by $1020 USD. Robinson explained that she and her husband had planned to have a couples massage at a cost of $340 USD. After the service, they realized that her husband’s card had been charged $680 USD, double what they expected. Initially, they chalked it up to a simple mistake and expected it to be an easy fix.
Robinson checked her own card, which had been used to book the room. Upon inspection, the couple noticed that Sandals had not only double charged her husband’s card, but they had also added two couples massages to the room and, consequently, Robinson’s card. Robinson points out that they were being charged for 4 couples massages at this point. “Enough massages for eight people,” she says.

The first thing Robinson did when they noticed the initial mistake was to try to resolve it with the employees at the resort. Employees on site told the couple that they would be unable to resolve the issue and that if she wanted it to be sorted out, she would have to contact Sandals customer support directly. After three months of waiting for a solution to the problem from Sandals, Robinson decided to attempt to dispute the charge through her credit card company, Discover. Robinson alleges that Sandals then lied to Discover about the nature of the charges, saying that the resort made it seem like the charges were for the room itself.

As if this all wasn’t enough, Robinson says that after months of working with the resort and Discover, somehow there are now two $680 USD charges on her account and one $680 USD charge on her husband’s account, totaling $2,040 USD. Viewers can hear the frustration in Robinson’s voice throughout the video. They can understand how helpless the situation must feel as Robinson ends the video by saying, “I am so desperate TikTok, like, I don’t know what else to do.”

Comments on the video empathize with Robinson and call out Sandals for not taking care of the issue before becoming a viral. According to Sandals, however, the issue has already been put to rest and they were surprised to see the post at all. A Sandals spokesperson admitted the mistake, and said that the couple was refunded within 2 weeks of the being notified of the issue on January 18th.
“We were surprised to see this addressed on social media as we already corrected the issue, but are confident the charges have been resolved, despite her post,” the Sandals spokesperson said.

The resort says that Mrs. Robinson then filed a dispute with her credit card on March 11th, which was ruled in favor of Sandals on March 28th. Mrs. Robinson’s husband then contacted Sandals and asked them to instead refund her card rather than his, as the massage was meant to be a gift. Sandals says they were happy to make the change and did so on May 4th. After looking into it further Sandals noticed the couple only used one of the massages they had booked and issued an additional $340 USD refund and 5000 Sandals Select points. This was done as a courtesy, as Sandals’ policy states that after 24 hours they are not obligated to issue refunds.

Travelers interested in visiting Jamaica are sure to take notice of this issue, with many already saying they will not be staying with Sandals after such a blatant mistake. However, with Sandals’ recent clarification, it is clear that the company is trying to make it clear they have done all they can to rectify the situation.
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