BILLINGS — The Billings Petroleum Club permanently shut its doors in September of 2022, with no notice to members who paid monthly fees to attend the restaurant.
Seven months later, some members are still being charged.
Carrie Rott was charged $60 a month for six months to attend a club she couldn't even enter before she reached out to her bank to stop the payment.
“It kept getting more and more frustrating because, like I said, I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were just trying to get their affairs in order to get people refunded," Rott said. "I had proof that I tried to reach out to them. That's all I needed to tell my banker. I tried to call, there's no voicemail set up. I sent an email to the email address on the receipt every month for our payment. It came back undeliverable. I sent a letter, it came back undeliverable, and so that's when I knew that my only resort was to go through the bank. And thank goodness they were able to help us."
Rott said her bank refunded her for two of the six months she was charged and didn't charge her a fee to stop the payments. April was the first month Rott hasn't been charged.
Geri Hill first spoke with MTN News in January about still being charged monthly payments after the Petroleum Club closed. Hill is still being charged $30 a month.
Michael Morgan was a board member of the Petroleum Club for around 10 months before the club was evicted from the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel. He said he was asked to join the board to help get the club back on track with day-to-day business.
“There were some things that, some misappropriated funds that we haven’t been able to put our finger on to this point," Morgan said. "At the time that I came in, we were behind several thousand dollars on rent. Behind several thousands of dollars on a good majority of the vendors.”
Morgan said he was unaware that members were still being charged.
“As of now, I don’t know that they still are being personally charged. I haven’t heard that until you told me that today,” Morgan said in an interview with MTN News.
Morgan said board members were not paid, and he did not have access to the bank accounts that the funds are going into. He said when he started, he found there were multiple accounts that the funds were going into. It is still unclear who has access to those accounts and where the money is going.
“I’m not sure that the funds are being allocated, to be honest with you, and I hope that they’re not,” he said.
The Petroleum Club hired Samantha Hallburn with PBS Accounting of Joliet in late 2021. She said one of the main things she worked on was setting up the auto pay for members to be charged monthly. She said she worked over 200 hours for the club. She had to stop working for them in early 2022 when she stopped getting paid.
According to Hallburn, the club still owes her $4,567.67.
Hallburn said she can easily stop the automatic charges but lost access to the account when she quit working for them. She said she has reached out to many board members offering to help but never got a response.
“I mean, I’m still happy to help them shut off the auto pays. I know how to do it. I’m the one that set it up. It’s very easy. It’s just somebody doesn’t want to,” Hallburn said.
Michael Carle has been the general manager at the DoubleTree for four months, so he wasn't around when the Petroleum Club was still open on the 22nd floor. But he said they did leave the place a mess when they vacated the property and estimated that the club still owes the hotel around $50,000 in rent.
But Carle is looking forward to taking on a new project with the space. They are already offering it for private events and weddings. He also said they plan on starting themed nights in the space, such as comedy nights and live music with dinner.
“Really get the community involvement back. Won’t be the Petroleum Club. We call it the Ponderosa Room now… And just get people to come on up and experience what other people had to pay for," Carle said.
