What would you do about this hotel?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Last weekend my sister stayed at hotel. She had a few problems, just the normal annoyances that one might find at a discount hotel, nothing too bad (at least not that she told me about, there could be other things). What set this in motion was that she was charged $50 more than her receipt said. I’m not sure what she did about that part of it, but she got a survey from their corporate office after her stay and she mentioned all the problems as well as being overcharged. The next part is what got her panicked. She got two phone calls from two different numbers (a cell phone number and a VOIP number) at 10pm and she let them go to voicemail. The first one was someone from the hotel cussing her out (he sounded drunk/high). In the second one (I didn’t listen to that one) he said he would comp the stay.
The next day she saw that the charge had been refunded, the day after that it was put back on for the original, correct, amount.
She tried calling the corporate office but it was nothing but phone trees and getting stuck on hold so she sent them a message on facebook and found someone that she could email the voicemails too. I told her that at some point she needs to make sure they understand that these calls (or at least one of them) came from the guy’s cell phone. That means he pulled her personal data out of the computer to harass her.
At this moment, my assumption is that he’s probably already lost his job.

Anyways, my original, kneejerk, suggestion, when she played me the voicemail was that she put it on facebook and twitter. I honestly think it could go viral. It’s starts with “Hey mother fucker, why you lying and shit on the survey”. Again, this is from a cell phone.

On the one hand, I told her before she does anything rash, she should wait until the credit card issue is resolved (either the stay is comped or they settle on the original charge (or they tell her to poundsand, but I doubt corporate will do that)), then, regardless of if she chooses to do anything else, she needs to cancel the card and get a new one since this guy is clearly being vindictive.
OTOH, if they do resolve it, to her satisfaction, it doesn’t quite seem fair to post the voicemails.
OTOOH, what he did was horrible. My sister was shaking when she was listening to these. She does get startled easily and doesn’t handle confrontation like this well, but still, no one should have to deal with this. In this scenario, if she does post them, I think it’s only fair that she doesn’t just say that she was at [chain] hotels, but specifically mentions the location/city.

I’m wondering if this isn’t the first bad review they’ve received. I see mixed reviews on the standard review sites, so I’m guessing they’ve had other issues. My other sister told her that after all is said and done, she needs to write this all up and post it to Yelp/tripadvisor/priceline/etc.

It’s interesting now that I think about it. If she were to post it and made it back to them, they’d probably take it out on her…if it went viral, they really couldn’t.

And, sometime I once told an ex-boyfriend of a (female) friend of mine that left a death threat on the new bf’s voicemail…Don’t leave voicemails. There wouldn’t have been much she could have done if the guy had just called and berated her, but now she has voicemails that she sent up to corporate. That has a lot more power then “uh, well, the whole place smelled bad and it took 10 minutes for someone to show up at the front desk”. It’s the difference between ‘hey, you can’t do that’ and ‘you know we have to fire you, right?’.
Also, I’m looking for real world ideas and trying to avoid groupthink/internet plots that end up building on each other and get unrealistic and out of hand really aren’t going to happen. If by post 40 we’ve decided she should call the FBI/FTC/Police because this is phone harasment, well, that’s probably not going to happen. Basically, what would you do if you left a bad review and they called you up an said you were a lying mothefucker. Drop it and move on? Let corporate deal with it? Post it online?

PS, if they didn’t overcharge her, she would have just ignored the survey. At least it’s nice to know Quality Inn / Choice Hotels takes those surveys seriously.

Another thing she mightneed to worry about is that the hotel was about 4 hours north of her and the cell phone had an area code of 1.5 hours south. Basically, (if it’s his cell phone) if he really wanted to get back at her, he knows where she lives and practically drives right past her house when he goes back home.

2

This part I wouldn’t worry about. A cell phone # is not a reflection of where people live any more, especially if they’re younger.

As to the rest of it, follow up with corporate and make sure that employee has been taken care of. If not resolved within a week of the phone call, then escalate to social media. But that’s just the part where he gets fired. If she wants to document the incident with police, she should do that asap because that’s regarding personal safety and is a separate issue from where this asshole is employed.

3

I wouldn’t expect the guy to stalk her IRL. I can’t say that with 100% certainty, given that he’s played fast and loose with her personal info already, but there’s no reason to assume it’ll happen unless he’s made a more explicit threat.

I do think an incident like this would get a lot of media traction–as an example, the Comcast customer service calls that keep making it to Reddit’s front page. Were I in her shoes, I would save that as a last resort if they don’t voluntarily fire the guy.

4

He didn’t actually threaten her, so I don’t think police involvement is necessary, he was just really, really nasty to her.

As far as making sure he’s fired, I don’t think there’s a whole lot we could do to verify that. All they have to do is say that he’s been dealt with or disciplined or fired and even if he hasn’t, we’d never know.
Also, it looks like they’re a franchise so I’m not sure if corporate can fire someone, they could, I suppose pull their franchise license if they keep getting these kind of complaints, which is why I always tell people to complain when something this bad happens. People sometimes feel bad complaining about bad customer service, but my usual advice is that if it was just a one off thing the manager will just delete the email and move on, OTOH, if the manger say ‘geez, this is like the third email this week about her’, they might finally do something about it.

But, regardless of if this is the first or 20th time they got a complaint about this guy, this was above and beyond horrible.

I’m still rooting for social media. It reminds me of that girl that called the theater and complained that she couldn’t use her phone while watching a movie.

5

I don’t think he would either, especially since he sounded drunk (not that I know what he sounds like normally, I wasn’t at the hotel), so he was probably blowing off some steam after corporate contacted him about the bad review. Hell, maybe he was already fired at that point.

6

Doing anything publicly is a Pandora’s Box; you can’t undo it once you do it.

You always have time on your side to let people (corporate in this case) do the right thing.

In the end, if you still feel unsatisfied, feel free to reach out to a local TV station and let them do a story. Company fucks with person stories always get traction. But give 'em a chance first.

7

Agreed, a while ago a customer [nothing to do with me] berated a business on facebook, the business responded to the post and it went viral. The overwhelming majority of the people were in the business’ side, but a few people said the business only did this as a publicity stunt. My thought was that if the customer had called or emailed their complaint, the business would have responded the same way, but they chose to take it to facebook, the business simply responded to the post and the customer ended up looking like an asshole.

My sister did contact the company, initially, via facebook just to let them know how she was treated, but that was it. They gave her an email address and the rest is being handled that way. As of right now she’s waiting to see what they’ll do next. She really only used facebook to get their attention. IME, that’s pretty effective, I’ve had to do it myself a few times when email or PMs on facebook don’t get a response. My guess is that they’ll comp the stay and she’ll let it go after that.

If she were to post the voicemails, like I said, they’re nasty enough, at least the first one, that it really wouldn’t surprise me if it went viral. At that point, I’d guess that random media outlets would pick it up.

It probably doesn’t hurt that there’s a very, very famous media person (with his own show) that has millions of twitter followers and only follows about 200 people and she’s one of them. If he were to retweet it (which, don’t get me wrong, I doubt would happen), it would blow up.

8

What does she want to accomplish here? To get her $50 refund, or to get revenge?
It sounds like the money issue will be solved. So that leaves the question of how nasty she wants to behave, and for what reason.
She could take this public, get the guy fired, and maybe she’ll feel better. She will have ruined his life–but she might also ruin her own. The drama may go on for months, or years.

If she is even a tiny bit afraid that the guy will stalk her, or that her credit card info will be misused, it’s NOT worth doing anything. The bad experience at the hotel is over.She was treated badly, but it will never happen again. There will be no other impact on her life.

This is just one tiny episode; something that is best forgotten, not made into a major life event that she has to invest lots of negative energy in, and then put up with drama that could haunt her for years.
If you’re not comfortable handling confrontations, then why step out of your comfort zone? What will you gain? Even if you complain, you’ll never really know if the guy got fired or not.

It’s only $50. Go treat yourself to a massage at the spa, relax, and forget it.

9

Has she emailed the voicemails to corporate?

10

That’s where I’d start. Everything else depends on how they respond.

11

Yes, she has.

I’m really not sure, I only talked to her for a few minutes yesterday. She’s not really the revenge type. That’s why at least part of this question was what would you do? Hypothetically. Just for fun, I mean, there’s only so many things she can do, I’ve already told her all the realistic suggestions I can think of, now I’m just curious as to what other people are thinking. Sometimes it’s best to ask other people that aren’t so close to the situation.
I’m sure, knowing her, if the either give her the $50 or comp the stay, she’ll drop the issue.
My guess is that they’ll comp the stay. Somewhere along the line someone tossed out the idea that they’d give her some hush money to delete the voicemail (that is, not put in on social media), but I really doubt that, and no, she’s not asking for anything like that.
I believe all she asked them for is that her credit card charge be corrected, if anything she may have asked that they comp the stay since the guy promised that in one of his voicemails.

12

Well, I would certainly save those voice mails, record them, and send them to the corporate office of the hotel chain (along with the cell number it came with). Most people don’t think things through, and the person who did it probably used his own cell phone.

I wouldn’t worry about the phone number. I kept my Florida cell phone number for a couple of years after moving to Massachusetts.

If she really feels unsafe, she should go to the police. Unless something else happens, though, I would just go about my life and pay more attention to what’s going on around me.

13

There’s an XKCD cartoon with the punch line saying approximately “the only reason to pay attention to the area code on a cell phone is to remind you where you were living in 2005” :slight_smile:

14

I’d insist on the comped stay (particularly since one of the voice mails says it will be comped; the company really doesn’t want those entered into the public record), which seems to reasonably make up for the harassing phone call and original mischarge, and request some kind of acknowledgement from the company that the conduct of the employee was unacceptable, and leave it at that. It’s not her job to get the guy fired or otherwise decide on what to do with him (but if he’s regularly costing them free rooms, I think I can guess what their decision will be…)

15

Doubt it. from your timeline, it looks like he looked her info up after her stay, once he saw the review. While I don’t know anything about their systems, it would be a huge PCI violation to display confidential/credit card info to just anyone; this info should either not be displayed at all, or at least masked (displaying the last 4 digits).
Even assuming that he is somehow able to see her card info. It’s a big leap from looking up a phone # & leaving a nastygram to taking her card info & using it. The latter gets you new jewelry - stainless-steel bracelets, interconnected.

16

When I was younger, i was like the sister - non-confrontational. Now that I’m an old fart, I’d have been so mad at that message I’d have driven back to the hotel and confronted whoever left it. Not confronted, as in, bash his teeth in, no, just a normal confrontation. Politely “Say that again to my face” sort of thing. I would want to get the feel what the manager thought (or if it WAS the manager who called). Let whoever it was know that I’m not intimidated. (Also, let them draw their own inferences about what I’d do, especially since I drove all the way back.) But no overt threatening actions. No yelling. Polite, in person. And see what happens from there.

17

The issue, as I see it, is that the card was overcharged and the receipt was incorrect. This was either an error or some kind of employee theft/scam. Management needed to be aware of this so they could appropriately intervene. They needed to refund the overcharge, and if they saw fit to discount or comp the stay, then that’s their call. They’ve now done this part.

Then a staff member inappropriately called and left an obscene message. This is a whole new situation, and one that management need to be aware of. It is entirely inappropriate for that employee to have called a customer and left angry messages, complete with obscenities. The hotel needs to be aware that their employee has done this, and they need to take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I think as a goodwill gesture they could offer some kind of reimbursement or discount, but that’s not really anything important, that’s just PR. The important thing is that they make sure that customer surveys are kept confidential so staff can’t harass customers who’ve left negative feedback, and that staff are professional and respectful of customers and do not ring them and call them “mother fucker”. The employee who did that should be reprimanded, and I don’t think firing him is out of line but at the very least he should be receiving training and put on some kind of probation. If I was your sister, the outcome I’d be looking for is an apology for the behavior of the staff member, an assurance that customer surveys would be treated as confidential in future, and a promise that the staff member involved had been appropriately reprimanded for his behavior and it would never happen again.

18

Got an update, the hotel (not sure if it was corporate or the actual hotel), emailed her a non-apology apology and said they would mail her a check for what they charged her credit card in 4-6 weeks.
I told her she needs to email them back and tell them that that’s unacceptable and they need to refund the money to her credit card. She shouldn’t have to wait 4-6 weeks for all of this to get sorted out after the way she was treated. Furthermore, I told her she should dispute the charge with her credit card. She has, in writing (one of the early emails), something saying they would comp the stay and a credit card statement that doesn’t reflect this.

It’s my two cents, she’ll probably just wait for the check, but I think she’s still planning to put the voicemail online.

My reason for demanding that they refund the credit card now instead of issuing a check sometime in the next 6 weeks is because I worry that they’re just trying to drag it out. What happens if the check is for the wrong amount and she has to go through it all again?

19

Either it’s a scam or the hotel people are just morons. Sending the refund by check (if they actually do it) sounds like a good way for the hotel to lose the money twice, since the bad charge will still be on the customer’s statement but the refund won’t be.

20

That’s something I thought about. It’s seems like it would be easier for all parties (actual hotel, corporate, customer credit card company etc), if the charge and the refund were right there, they’d even be on the same month’s statement.
Yes, if 4 months later she claimed she didn’t get the refund they could find the canceled check, but this would be easier.
It’s one of the reasons I’m suggesting she dispute the charge. They might see the chargeback and just allow it and forego the writing the check, that’s what happened with me a few years ago when a company was giving me a really hard time about issuing a refund check.