hakone free pass taken away and overcharged

Hello,

My husband and I went to Hakone for the first time today. We took the normal metro train from shinagawa to Hakone Odawara, where we bought our Hakone free pass from a chinese lady at the information counter. It costed 4000yen for the free pass ticket which allowed us access to transport at Hakone and discounts to musuem.
Everything went well until our way back from Hakone to Shinjuku via the odakyu line.
The officer at Shinjuku wanted a different ticket from our hakone free pass which we were not given.
Hence he had charged us extra 880yen and took our 2 days hakone free pass away (It was our first day to hakone).
Im confused because i thought that the return transport was included for odakyu line and that extra charge was only for those who took the skinkansen?
Also he did not give us any receipt and insisted us to pay the 880yen extra claiming that the pass did nit cover odawara to shinjuku. Im not sure what happened and wonder if someone can explain to me if i had misunderstood what the 2 days hakone free pass offers?

Sorry for the jarring experience, but it seems to you misunderstood the different pass versions. Hopefully it will make you feel better to know that you were not overcharged and that you still got a heck of a deal with the pass.

So to explain what happened, the (4000 yen version) ticket that you bought at Odawara only covers Hakone plus travel to/from Odawara only. It was not valid from Odawara to Shinjuku which is why you had to pay the regular fare for that section of the trip (880 yen).

More info here:

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2358_008.html

Im confused because i thought that the return transport was included for odakyu line and that extra charge was only for those who took the skinkansen?

If you bought the (5140 yen version) pass at Shinjuku then it would have covered transport to/from Shinjuku. An extra supplement is necessary if you want to use Romance Car limited express trains. Shinkansen is never covered by the Hakone Passes as it is a different company.

Agree with the above and just wanted to add: the pass got taken away because you'd used up the return trip. It's a two-day pass, but only includes one return trip, not two. So you had one return trip between Odawara and Hakone, and once you used it up you couldn't use it to get back to Hakone. It's a two-day pass to allow people to spend a night in Hakone in between.

Although it seems strange to take it away when you can theoretically still use it inside Hakone, the ticket machine at the gates when you left Odawara would have "swallowed" it anyway and not given it back, because it assumes you are done with it. The main saving is for the return journey.