BMW530

3 men go into a motel. The desk clerk said the room was $30, so each man paid $10 and went to the room. A while later, the desk clerk realized the room was only $25, so he sent the bellboy to the 3 guys' room with $5. On the way, the bellboy couldn't figure out how to split $5 evenly between 3 men so he gave each man $1 and kept the other $2 for himself. This meant that the 3 men each paid $9 for the room, which made a total of $27. Add to that the $2 the bellboy kept and the total is $29. Where is the other dollar?"
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Depending on where it is being told, the answer varies: if in India the "missing" 1 Rupee went to pay for a room with working plumbing; in Japan the "missing" 10 Yen found its way into a pond to appease the hotel gods; in Australia the "missing" $1 AUS went on walk-about; in the USA the "missing" $1 was later found to be a forgery and apparently destroyed; in Colombia the "missing" $1 turned out to be the forged USA dollar bill, and was used to pay for drugs that found their way to the USA; in the UK the "missing" ?1 was of course used to pay an old government tax that everyone thought didn't exist anymore; and so on...

Unfortunately the actual answer is far more mundane and is all to do with
the teaser's wording.

This is a trick question. The $2 should be SUBTRACTED from the $27, not added to it, to reach the correct total of $25, the actual price of the room.

Or in other words: There is no other dollar. The three men paid $30 to stay in the hotel. After realizing his mistake, the owner gives the boy $5. That means $25 is accounted for in renting the room. $2 more is accounted for as the boy pockets $2 to keep confusion to a minumun. This is $27 total so far. The last $3 of the $30 goes to the men renting the rooms, $1 each. 25 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 = $30.

alohalc

heard it before and took me a little while to figure out .