I checked in to this 4 stars hotel in Florence on Sunday, 29th May 2022 at 8 pm. The reservation for the 4 nights stay at the hotel was made through booking.com and the booking was paid for in advance via booking.com. The check-out date was 2nd June 2022.
For the majority of my stay at the hotel, everything was uneventful, and I didn’t have too much interaction with the staff. And since I did not wish to be disturbed and because I value my privacy, the “do not disturb” sign was always displayed on my door. The housekeeping staff didn’t clean my room even once during the whole stay. There was only one instance that the sign dropped on the ground and I put it up as “please clean up” by mistake, so later in the day, the cleaning lady went to my room and opened my door while I was still inside the room. Immediately I told her there was a mistake as it was supposed to be on Do Not Disturb, the lady responded that she realized the same as even she noticed that the Do Not Disturb sign was always at the door and was missing on this day At that point I emphasized again that I do not wish to have anyone enter my room without my authorization, this was acknowledged and promised by the team member.
Coming to the actual chain of events after discovering the theft of my belongings from the room, both from the electronic safe provided for safekeeping in the room as well as my luggage.
June 2 – 6:44 am:
When I woke up, I went downstairs to check some information with hotel staff and upon my return to the room, I noticed that the room was in a state of disarray. The shopping bag which was, originally in the closet, was now opened and found on the ground. I saw that someone had ripped open the bag and took my things away. Furthermore, I realized that the safety box door was open, when it should have been closed, as I had put my valuables in the safe and secured it with my confidential code, which was not shared with anybody. Upon checking the open safe, I realized that all my valuable belongings were missing from the same. This included 2 international wallets with foreign currencies, IDs, Credit Cards, Debit cards, etc
7:11am
I went downstairs to reception and asked for the receptionist’s help, They refused to believe me and asked if it is my own fault that I didn’t close the door properly. After imploring them to come with me to verify the situation as I was very terrified if there might have been somebody hiding in the bathroom or elsewhere within the room and could hurt me. Finally, after much persuasion, the male receptionist came with me and checked the room. He also took a video of everything during this visit to the room. After this was done, due to my fear of being in the room alone, I went downstairs with him and sought suggestions for the next course of action. Eventually after a discussion with the receptionist, I called the police at 7:34 am and they came to check the room. They asked what happened and logged a complaint with their camera at 7:50AM. After that they suggested me to go police station to file an official report for this incident. I was instructed to bring the door-lock open history as well as any other evidence/ reports that the hotel was deemed responsible to provide me.
The hotel team first mentioned the door-lock reading machine was broken and they cannot provide me with a report. After repeated insistence from me, they said that they needed to wait for the Hotel Director as somebody in higher management would be the only person who can do anything about it. I asked them kindly if it was possible to call the Hotel Director and ask him to earlier as I had a fight to catch on that day, I really did not have much time left at the hotel. The hotel reception team refused to call him. The kind of answers I got from the other receptionist lady were: “he will come eventually, no need to call him” and “are you really sure you didn’t put your stuff somewhere?” This shows an absolute lack of sympathy and empathy in the situation I had found myself at your hotel for no fault of mine.
She even asked me “Are you sure you didn’t bring someone back to your room?”, this statement represents a mindset of discrimination, apathy, and arrogance. Just these words alone present a topic of grave humiliation any female single traveler like I was at your hotel. Who, in this day and age, says a woman always need a partner? Who says people who go to Italy must find partner to spend the night with? Why is this one of the first reaction you would ask to a single female traveler?
8:35AM
I felt heartbroken and found myself in tears because I felt, for the first time in this trip to Italy, alone and as if no one was there to support me in my time of need. Almost all the feedback I got from the receptionist lady was negative. It was like she either didn’t care about my complaint or she didn’t want to care about my complaint. I decide to go to my room the calm myself down, I asked the team to make a new key for me and went to the floor with 2 news key cards the lady receptionist made for me. I entered the room and soon after I realized I need to talk to her and so I went out and just at the moment my door closed I remember that I had left something behind, when I tried to open the door with the new keys I was given, the keys didn’t work! I went down to the reception again and told them that the key wasn’t working, when the team showed disbelief, I showed her a video of 35 secs that I used both cards and none of them worked. She said it is very strange especially I just open it few minutes ago.
Then she mentioned, that at that moment only she was alone at the reception as the male receptionist had finished his shift already and gone home. She then asked the cleaning lady to open the door for me. I waited a long 20 mins at the reception at this stage, I was ignored by the receptionist, nobody told me if I could go to my room or if the cleaning lady was already ready for me or if somebody was coming to get me at reception. Finally, after waiting for 20 mins, I asked the receptionist again to contact the housekeeping staff to open the door for me.
8:55am
When I arrived at the 3rd Floor, the cleaning lady was already there waiting for me, since I was so shaken up with the chain of events till then, I made another video to record the door when she opened it successfully.
10 am
I went downstairs to enquire with the receptionist if the Hotel Director has reached the hotel and since he hadn’t, I asked if she could call him to come earlier and find a solution to all the strange things that had happened with me on that day. She gave me no reply and even laughed at bit. It was evident that she felt that the situation I found myself in at this hotel, was amusing. She refused to help me. At one point she even suggested me to go to the police station without the door key record. All she did was just keep saying “only today the door key machine is not functional, never happened before” and she laughed again when I was about to cry.
Further, she mentioned the only CCTV at the hotel is facing the entrance, so reviewing the CCTV footage wouldn’t be able to identify the person who entered by room and stole my belongings. She refused to help by allowed me to review the footage myself. I was not allowed to review the CCTV footage to even answer and discredit her earlier allegation that I might have brought somebody back to the hotel room.
Again, with no assistance from the hotel team, I went back to the room but didn’t dare to move anything in the room as I was hoping to show the same to the Hotel Director. While we were waiting for him to arrive to the hotel, I went out for a little whole to run some errands and came back to hotel 10:58am to meet the Hotel Director. He then showed me the door card access record and announced that it is all my own entry an exit record and it was impossible that someone can get in my room without a digital record on the registry and mention if I didn’t open or close the door properly it should show on the report too.
I also request the hotel director to come to the room and check the scene with me, but he didn’t even bother to do it at all. He flatly refused to do that.
11:13am
While reviewing the door-lock record statement, I showed him that the cleaning lady had opening my door for me and this entry was not shown in the records, he went to the room to reconfirm himself with his card and then generated the report again. The 8:55 access from cleaning lady’s card still not showing in the record. Upon my questioning how that was possible, he could provide no explanation and rejected my request to record our conversation as a proof of fact. He at the end said “for the things you lost if you still have the receipt maybe the insurance will pay “particularly” but as for your wallet and other currencies even you say you one million euro no one can prove it” and furthermore he mentioned that due to the fact that there is no CCTV on the floor maybe I was lying.
Forget being of any assistance, the gentleman decided to put the blame on me, even without checking my room, without providing explanations for the missing key entries to my room (from the housekeeper), with no apology for my fragile state of mind arising from the fact that my hotel room was accessed by a person or persons and my belongings stolen from me while being considered “in-house” at this hotel.
Furthermore, when I requested for the safety box open/close history report. The hotel management refused to provide the same to me. How can they disregard a serious complaint like such of theft without a proper investigation? How can they refuse to provide basic reports in such an incidence? How can they decide, a-la minute, to put the blame on me? Why was I not given the reports I required to complete my police complaint? Why was no assistance provided to me despite repeated pleas of help?
I can’t not accept that this is the attitude one should accept from a hotel such as this, or for that matter any hotel, when serious mishaps happen to a paying client at the hotel. If you review the attached Door-Lock report, you will find apart from the seemingly missing housekeeping entries to the room, there is also an entry at 6:15AM, when I was in the room and asleep. Imagine my hotel room door was opened by somebody at this time. The hotel team, including the Hotel Director is not able to identify the person or explain the reason why or who opened my room door. The criminal who stole my belongings could have raped me and hurt me just to steal.
After my departure from the hotel and during my flight to Hong Kong, I have had a chance to take a closer look at the door key report and found out there were total 8 times in 60 hours (from 10th May 2022 14:41 till 2nd June 2022 6:15 ). That someone has opened the door and entered my room without consent and invaded my basic right to privacy.
I would like to state for the record that at the moment, I now live-in fear, I am unable to sleep, my mental peace and state of mind has been completely destroyed. The ramifications of these issues resulted in a serious case of UTI under which, I was required to call an ambulance to take me to the Emergency Room of a hospital upon landing in Hong Kong.
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