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Traveling is already enough of an expensive headache. The last thing any guest needs is additional charges, especially if they shouldn’t actually apply.
One young woman is going viral for calling attention to a “scam” that’s allegedly plaguing American hotels. Travelers are starting to have enough.
‘This … expensive hotel is running an organized scam’
Australian runner and content creator Ali Smith (@alismithhhh) posted a video about her and her friend’s stay at Row NYC. The video has since accumulated more than 188,000 views.
“We just got scammed by our hotel in New York City and we have no idea what to do about it,” Smith said. “We’re so disappointed because we actually really like [Row NYC]. Not anymore, because they’ve tried to accuse us of smoking in the room.”
Smith’s friend, who is also Australian, said the situation was aggravating. The pair had previously heard of “the scam in New York where they charge you for smoking in your room when you don’t smoke.” They had assumed “that wouldn’t happen in a nice hotel like this.”
Smith emphasized that neither she nor her friend were smoking.
“They’ve accused us of smoking at a specific time on the 4th of July,” Smith said. Her friend added, “And what were we doing at that time? Blow drying our hair.”
Smith also said that they had no evidence of the two women smoking at all.
“They can’t prove it because they asked us, when we were disputing the charge, ‘Did someone come up to investigate?’” Smith said. “No one came up to investigate. There’s no photo evidence.”
Smith even invited hotel staff to come search her and her friend’s room and “look through [their] things.” She said she told staff they “[weren’t] going to find anything.” An employee responded that such a search “would be pointless because [Smith and her friend have] already smoked it.”
What is the hotel smoking scam?
As noted by Smith and her friend, this is not the first reported instance of a hotel “scamming” customers by adding on false smoking charges. These stories are characterized by a few common threads — namely, out-of-state guests who don’t smoke having an otherwise positive hotel experience, only to see a smoking fee billed at the end of their stay or afterward.
In October 2025, People reported that another New York City guest accused a Times Square hotel of doing the same thing. According to People, the guest was staying at M Social Hotel when she received a $500 smoking fee. But the woman said she doesn’t smoke. She also added that she wasn’t in the room when the hotel detected the smoke. The guest believed she was able to get out of the fee due to her story going viral on TikTok.
But this phenomenon isn’t just reported in New York. The Points Guy reported in February of this year that a married couple —both of whom were “lifelong nonsmokers”— were charged a $396 smoking fee by the Strat hotel in Las Vegas. They battled the charge for two full months and even procured their medical records to prove their innocence. The Points Guy personally requested a refund on the guests’ behalf, and the fee was eventually returned.
Buzz News has reached out to both Smith and Row NYC via email.
