Complaint Review: Universal Housing USA

We paid Universal Housing nearly $5,000 for three rooms at the Aria hotel for the 2015 SEMA show in Las Vegas, NV.

We paid them ON TIME every single time.

First was a credit card deposit to book the rooms in June, 2015.

Then we paid the final balance before it was "due" in October, 2015.

This was for three rooms to host all of us - so a team of six staff travelling from Mexico, USA, and Canada.

Prior to us arriving me and my wife contacted Aria to ensure that the rooms were booked and that we would be OK. The first call was made to Aria to confirm bookings on/about SEPT 15th, 2015. We were shocked to hear from Aria hotel that there were no rooms for us, at that time.

That worried us because this is arguably the largest show in Las Vegas and rooms are often booked up months prior to the show. Any rooms that aren't booked are extremely expensive a month before the show, itself.

We contacted Rebecca and Lindsay and they said "We have a block of rooms already, don’t worry - we'll fix it".

We called the next day - Aria said the same thing - then we called Rebecca and Lindsay and they said the same thing.

This went on for weeks until we were days before arriving and still had no confirmations from Aria that our rooms were booked and paid for with the money went sent to Universal Housing USA.

The day before we arrived Rebecca Jonson said "you'll be fine - we've got it under control - Aria is a little disorganized BUT we're open 24 hours and we have a 30 minute call back guarantee so if you call and we don’t answer ANY TIME, we will call you back within 30 minutes"

That made me feel slightly better and we hoped that they would have our rooms for us upon arrival - as I was travelling from Canada, at the time.

We arrived in Las Vegas and took a cab to Aria hotel and the staff at the desk said "sorry, there are no rooms here for you"

This was in front of me and my party of 5 other guests - some having travelled from Mexico.

We called Universal Housing - no answer

Called again - no answer (30 minutes later)

Called again - phone off

They marooned a party of six travelling from all corners of the continent with nowhere to stay in a fully booked town.

Names: Rebecca Johnson and Lindsay Brown

lindsay brown <lindsaybrown@universalhousingusa.com>

rebecca johnson <rebeccajohnson@universalhousingusa.com>

The following morning I had to have my wife call from Canada (as they wouldn’t recognize the number) and sure enough - Rebecca answered and said "sorry, my phone died last night".

We were then told "Steven,

As per our phone conversation the rooms were released from our room block due to a challenge on the initial deposit. When accounting comes back in they will confirm that you are not using the rooms and process a refund. Like I stated I will be in contact with you by 12:30"

So their story is that the day of arrival - they cancelled our rooms and took our money because someone in our company didn’t DISPUTE our credit card deposit from April, 2015 but "challenged it" which means it wasn't disputed but rather just an inquiry on the charge. We had a letter from our bank drafted and signed indicating that there were "NO CHALLENGES, INQUIRIES, or ANYTHING WHAT SO EVER relating to any payment to them".

It is now January, 2016 and they are long gone with our $5000 and seem to not feel bad that they stranded six people from all over the continent in Las Vegas for a week AND stole our money.

They aren't bad business people but just BAD PEOPLE in general. I would not do such a thing to my worst enemy.