When a man checked out of a hotel, he was shocked to find he had been charged for parking even though he didn’t have a car.

Assuming it must be a mistake, he called the front desk. To his surprise, he was told that this fee was not an error, but a mandatory fee for all guests, regardless of whether they parked at the resort or not.

The hotel guest was charged a “mandatory valet parking fee” of $75 despite not having a car.

When convention organizer Robert Kraus visited a recently opened Hyatt Place in north Florida for an “educational conference for meeting planners,” everything appeared as it should. He was given his room key and information about free Wi-Fi and breakfast.

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At check-in, Kraus was also asked if he was parking at the hotel. “I said no because I took an expensive van service from the airport to the property,” he explained on LinkedIn.

The man attended his conference as planned and checked out of the hotel three days later.

“(When) I checked out — like a lot of people — I just left the key while I was rushing to get my van back to the airport an hour away,” he recalled. “Once at the gate, I checked my emails, which included the final (bill) from the hotel.”

That’s when he noticed he was being charged $25 a day for valet parking despite the fact that he didn’t even have a car with him.

“Imagine my eyes literally popping out of my head!” he wrote. “Mind you, this added about 18% to the cost of my hotel room, so it was no small feat.”

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The man contacted the hotel reception in an attempt to resolve this issue.

After being put on hold for what seemed like an eternity, Kraus was told that during check-in he was given a piece of paper outlining the hotel’s rules and regulations, at the bottom of which was noted the charge.

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“I admit, I didn’t read the entire list — which was a page long (by the way),” Kraus wrote of the aforementioned paper. “Not even the front desk encouraged me to read this.”

The newspaper explained that each guest would be charged a “mandatory valet parking fee” of $25 per day, whether or not they parked on the property.

After learning this information, Kraus asked to speak to a manager, who—after putting him on hold several times—assured Kraus that they would make him “a waiver” and credit him the $75. As of the September 18th LinkedIn post, he was still waiting for the refund.

This isn’t the first time these so-called “junk fees” have been foisted on Kraus by hotels. While staying at a hotel with his staff, he was charged $20 a night for a “daily destination fee” — for each of the 50 rooms he had booked.

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Junk taxes are hidden or unnecessary charges added by companies to the cost of goods or services, often without providing a valid explanation.

Unwanted charges may appear on hotel bills for facilities such as gyms, swimming pools or WiFi, even if the guest did not use them not at all

These fees strain the budget of customers and understand the total cost, as they are often not disclosed upfront.

In 2023, a consumer protection nonprofit called Travelers United filed a lawsuit against the Hyatt Corporation, alleging the chain defrauded customers out of millions of dollars by falsely advertising hotel room rates.

“Instead of disclosing the total cost of its hotel rooms upfront, Hyatt instead adds ‘destination fees’, ‘resort fees’ and other similar charges that are truly part of the daily room rate,” the document says of submission.

According to Travelers’ United Legal Director Lauren Wolfe, unwanted fees account for more than $2 billion a year in the hotel business.

“Junk fees are not just greedy and deceptive. They are illegal,” Wolfe told The Street. “This lawsuit will show that hotels are breaking the law when they charge resort fees without including them in the advertised price.”

In October 2023, The Biden administration has cracked down on unwanted taxes to protect American consumers.

No one should have to pay a fee for services they did not use. If you happen to notice extra and unnecessary charges on your bill, don’t be afraid to dispute them!

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Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango covering entertainment and news, self, love and relationships.