Help me figure this out it drives me bananas?

Question

okay so three guys pull into a motel and ask a bell hop how much for your worst room the bell hop says i think thirty dollars so each guy pays 10 dollars. later that night the manager comes back and asks the bell hop if any customers came and he said yes they paid 30 dollars for room 978 then the manager said that room is only 25 dollars so the manager told the bell hop to give the men there monry back so the bell hop was outside of the door when he slipped two of the dollars into his pocket so that each man gets a dollar back each(making it so each payed 9 dollars) but if the men payed 9 dollars each 9*3=27+2 dollars the bell hop has what happened to the other dollar???

Answer 1

he kept it??? LOL http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...

Answer 2

ok, so this is what I got...

8x3=24 so they each get $2 back.

then there is an extra dollar and there are two choices of what could have happened,

1- each man got $ .33 and gave the bell hop one penny or

2- they kept the dollar, the manager did...

Answer 3

this is because originaly they payed 30 dollars but when the bell hop took 2 dollars, then he only had 28 of their money left. then when he gave them the 3 dollars he had 25 dollars of their money left and they each ended up paying 9 dollars. it just turns out confusing when u try and multiply 3 by 9 buy that doesnt give u the corect answer. i dont really know if this makes sense or not but its wat i think so ya.

Answer 4

okay.. so this is what i figured, and it makes sense.

the three men did pay $30 for their room - $10 each.

and the bell hop is meant to return $5 for overcharging them, but pockets $2 and only returns $3.

Even though he returns a dollar to each man, this doesn't mean they payed $9 because there are two dollars that aren't equated in the problem anymore.

The truth is that the equation changes from three men paying $30 for a room to three men paying $25. This changes what each man pays to roughly $8 and 33 cents (25/3).

Now if you were to add in the dollar that each man was refunded, it would mean that each payed $9 and 33 cents. Multiplied by 3, this becomes roughly $28. And if you add in the two dollars the bell hop kept, it gives you a total of $30 - there, all dollars accounted for.

The other dollar is lost in translation from a 30 dollar room to a 25 dollar room.

hope this makes sense, it really is a nice riddle

Answer 5

The facts in this riddle are clear:  There is an initial $30 charge.  It should have been $25, so $5 must be returned and accounted for.  $3 is given to the 3 friends, $2 is kept by the bellhop - there you have the $5.  The trick to this riddle is that the addition and subtraction are done at the wrong times to misdirect your thinking - and quite successfully for most.  Each of the 3 friends did indeed pay $9, not $10, and as far as the friends are concerned, they paid $27 for the night.  But we know that the clerk will tell us that they were charged only $25 and when you add the $3 returned with the $2 kept by the bellhop, you come up with $30.

OR

The following night two friends check into the same motel. Once again the clerk charges them $30, or $15 per person. After the clerk remembers the total rate is only $25 he sends the bellhop upstairs with five $1 bills to pay the two friends back. The bellhop knows he got away with larceny once so he tries it again. But this time he pockets $3 and returns $2 to the hotel guests ($1 per guest). So each of the two guests got $1 back from their original $15. Therefore each paid $14 which is a total payment of $28 for the room. Now the bellhop has $3, the guests paid $28, for a total of $31....THERE'S THE MISSING DOLLAR!!!!