....missing dollar.........10 points for the first correct answer?

Question

Three friends check into a motel for the night and the clerk tells them the bill is $30, payable in advance. So, they each pay the clerk $10 and go to their room. A few minutes later, the clerk realizes he has made an error and overcharged the trio by $5. He asks the bellhop to return $5 to the 3 friends who had just checked in. The bellhop sees this as an opportunity to make $2 as he reasons that the three friends would have a tough time dividing $5 evenly among them; so he decides to tell them that the clerk made a mistake of only $3, giving a dollar back to each of the friends. He pockets the leftover $2 and goes home for the day! Now, each of the three friends gets a dollar back, thus they each paid $9 for the room which is a total of $27 for the night. We know the bellhop pocketed $2 and adding that to the $27, you get $29, not $30 which was originally spent. Where did the other dollar go????

Answer 1

they hired 4 two bit wh@res

Answer 2

This is a classic conundrum.  For my money, ($9), it demonstrates a flaw in mathematics!

Answer 3

Ok, this odesn't make sense...they should have only paid 25 for the room so you subtract the amount the bellhop got fro mthe total that they paid (27) and then add the five that was overcharged...that will give you 30.... there is no missing dollar

Answer 4

The dollar didn't go anywhere. You should add 3 to the 27 dollars because there is 25$ they paid the 3$ they got back and 2$ they gave the waiter. I mean the 2$ is in the 3x9=27$ they paid. not 3$.

Answer 5

its still there

its $28 not 27

it only costs 25 not 27

Answer 6

Out of the $30:

$25 went to pay for the room

$2 were pocketed by the bellhop

$3 the guests back as change

The problem is that you add the money the bellhop got to the total sum the friends spent, even though the "tip" came from the money the three friends spent and should be substracted from it, not added.