Mary Yostos needs your advice.
She had a horrible experience at the Grand Hotel in Minneapolis last September. While at a wedding party, her wallet was stolen. Her complaints to the hotel were for nothing. “They said the restaurant on the second floor was technically not part of the hotel,” she says.
So she wrote a negative review about the property on TripAdvisor.com.
i was at this hotel for a pre-wedding party and we went to the restaurant upstairs…my wallet was stolen here from some guy off the street who walked into the hotel and randomly went to this restaurant. as i was in pursuit of the criminal in the street, my friends reported this to the front desk and they were not willing to call the police and said it wasnt their issue…the valet parking people ran after the criminal and called 911…i wouldnt feel safe to stay here.
That’s when the fun started.
The hotel wasn’t happy with her review. First, it responded to the post online, leaving a rebuttal on TripAdvisor. So she wrote to the hotel, explaining again what had happened.
I was at your hotel on the evening of September 11th to attend a very small pre-wedding gathering with my friends on the restaurant on the second floor.
We were the only ones in the restaurant at the time and this couple came in the midst of us and stole my wallet out of my purse right in front of me. When I actually discovered the wallet was gone, I went after him in the street.
As I went in pursuit of the guy in the street to attempt to get my wallet back, my friends proceeded to the front desk to call the police and report the incident, where the front desk person refused to call saying that the restaurant is not part of the hotel and that the hotel is not responsible for what goes on in the restaurant. While I understand this point, I just found that response very rude.
The doormen in front of the Grand Hotel and the Crowne Plaza across the street (I think they were in charge of the valet parking as well) were the ones who tried to help me by calling 911 for the police from their cell phones and help me run after the criminal. Your hotel staff though, was extremely unhelpful.
What can be done in the future? Train your staff to call the police, even if something happened in the restaurants above….it’s common courtesy….I ended up staying at the Marriott City Center down the street and actually the set up of the hotel makes it more difficult for a stranger to walk up to the lobby/restaurant areas….I know that the Grand Hotel has history behind its structure which makes it difficult, but something tells me that this guy has been in the hotel before since he knew to randomly come upstairs to the restaurant on the second floor.
I was very disappointed with the way the hotel handled the situation which prompted my post on Tripadvisor.com. I do travel a lot for work and for personal and this is the first time where anything like this has happened to me (I am from the NYC metro area and haven’t been robbed once). I do think that the hotel just needs to review its security policies that are in current place.
I did write comments to the Grand Hotel on their Web site the week after I returned from Minneapolis and sadly there was no response, up until your message today on Tripadvisor.com.
Here’s the letter she received after her inquiry and TripAdvisor post:
I just want to close the loop on the issues that we’ve been discussing. Regarding the delay in getting back to you, I’ve had to involve several people, including employees within several departments our hotel, Zahtar restaurant and the Minneapolis PD, and it’s taken quite some time to get the complete picture.
Thank you for the kind words regarding our hotel staff. We like to think (and it’s been my experience) that everyone who works here is, at the very least always hospitable, responsive and helpful, which is why your situation caught us so completely off guard. I have a lot to address here so I’m going to resort to bullet points, please forgive my formality.
1) Lack of Security…while troubling, we’re sort of in a bind here as your personal situation relates to hotel security. First of all, even though we’re privately held as a hotel we’re a very public place particularly in our “public” areas. Frankly, it’s in our best interest (and that of our lessees) to not restrict access to these places during business hours. Additionally, Zahtar (where your belongings were stolen from) is neither owned nor operated by the hotel and for us to keep out potential paying customers during business hours based on the premise that they “may be up to no good” is strictly forbidden in the terms of their lease.
2) Lack of Responsiveness…your review on Tripadvisor was literally the first time that we were made aware of your situation. Unfortunately there was some sort of technical issue with our on-line complaint forum and I did not receive the auto-generated email that the system is supposed to send. This has been fixed, and the flow of questions, praise and the occasional complaint has been restored. For this I do apologize, but please understand that it was out of control, and we would never take a complaint lightly, regardless of where an incident may have occurred.
3) Rude Desk Staff…after reviewing our records and seeing who was on duty that evening, we have taken the steps necessary to remove the individual on duty that evening (this wasn’t the first or last incident in which they were involved) from any position in which they would have guest contact. We were certainly at fault for hiring and placing this individual in the first place, and we’ve taken steps to rectify that situation in light of what you’ve told us.
4) Minneapolis PD…Having received the case # from the Zahtar manager, I followed up with the police, but also was able to get nowhere in their bureaucracy.
I understand that you have mixed feelings about Minneapolis and strongly negative feelings about our hotel based on your experience. I suppose anyone in your shoes would feel that way. But I also urge you to put yourself in our shoes. We bend over backwards to take the best care of our hotel guests…for many of us, it’s our life’s work. And it’s our sincere feeling that we have addressed the issues in your complaints, and where culpable we have tried to right our wrongs. As such, I ask that you consider editing and/or taking down your negative review on Tripadvisor.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Geoff Roether
Senior Corporate Sales Manager
Grand Hotel Minneapolis
So should Yostos delete her review or not?
Well, TripAdvisor reviews can’t be edited once it’s submitted, but you can ask the site to remove a review.
I tried to find Yostos’ review, but it appears someone — maybe TripAdvisor acting on the request of the hotel — zapped her post. I have asked TripAdvisor to comment on this and will update this story when I hear back from the site.
Yostos asked me what to do, and frankly, I don’t know.
The people who were there said I should keep it up. The only thing they really did was just move the front desk person to another place where not dealing with guests. I feel like this guy went through everything because of the bad review on the Web site and now thinks i should take it down since he was so ‘responsive’.
Personally, I would never go back there myself…so i dont know, which is why im asking your professional opinion.
Nothing she said in her review appears to be false. But at the same time, it appears that her concerns are being addressed by the hotel.
What to do?
What would you do?
(Photo illustration: nataliej/Flickr Creative Commons)
Update (2 p.m.): Yostos has investigated the disappearance of her review:
I went onto my account and it says I never posted anything.
I was considering of being nice and adding something to say the hotel has responded, but an event is an event…and this happened and it could happen to someone else. It’s just like if you saw a rat in the room and you write a review about that.
Thanks for your help with this! I appreciate it. I guess they did the dirty work for me and removed the review so that the hotel could keep its excellent reputation. I’m contemplating writing to the manager of the Grand Hotel asking if they had anything to do with it. I find it suspicious that it disappeared after the manager asked me to remove my post.
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Consumers have completely unrealistic expectations of what hotel and restaurant staff members should or shouldn’t do, and are or aren’t responsible for. Sure it sucks that she got robbed, but it certainly isn’t the hotel’s fault. Yes the hotel desk should have called the police, but geeze lady- the one that deserved the negative review was the robber, not the hotel. It looks like you had a bad experience and were just looking for someone to take it out on.
A person’s review of a hotel, restaurant, movie, book, play, etc. should never be somethng they have to apologize for. It was their experience, their reaction, their tale, and it should be something they stand by and not be bullied into taking down. I have posted things here that columnists have emailed me back on, and one confrontation got to the point where the columnist found me offensive for the fact that I would not change my opinions on the article. I should not have to. I am not sorry for stating my opinion. Nor should anyone else be. The hotel staff can reply under the pretense of being appalled, but to try to make her feel like the bad person for exercising her right to free speech and criticizing the level of service she received only speaks louder to the lack of professionalism the hotel had. I applaud her for sharing her experiences. Not all reviews are good ones, and establishments are ridiculous in their attempts to manipulate reviews to only show the good ones. Rather than making a littany of excuses and eye-rolls at this person’s complaint, they could have sent her back an apology letter, and used the incident as a training tool, regardless of how accurate they think the events were. Any site that only has positive reviews of something is definitely hiding something. It is a fact that not everyone will always be pleased all the time, and an establishment that tries to make you think they can are not being honest.
The site is for reviews. It’s a place for people to express their opinions whether good or bad and should stay as is if the complaint is legit. It’s what we expect and seek when trying to find out how a property is run. Maybe Trip Advisor should allow for P.S. from the author by using a password rather than deleting in order to update.
I once posted a not very pleasant review of a Britis monument, complaining about price and service. I received a personal message from someone calling me ignorant for not appreciating how worthy that monument was. I felt really terrible after that, and even thought of taking the review down, but then realized it was my opinion – I discount the opinion of others when reading reviews (when someone complains that the hotel did not have beans for breakfast, I just laugh and move on to other reviews), so ohters should discount it as well.
I trust the opinions on Tripadvisor because I myself am a regular contributor. Please, post the review again and eventually add the followup. To be honest, reading that review would not deter me from staying there.
And don’t feel bad, it’s your opinion, you’re entitled to it. On the contrary, bullying a customer to edit a review is not right.
It sounds to me that the only thing the hotel should apologize for is the rudeness of the front desk person who refused to call the police. The fact that her wallet was stolen is not the hotel’s fault. They cannot be expected to screen every individual who walks through the door, especially considering the fact that the restaurant is open to the public and not just overnight hotel guests. Even enhanced security measures such as armed guards and a metal detector at the hotel entrance would not provide guaranteed protection from random, unarmed theifs. It may have made it more difficult for the theif to get away with the wallet, but there are always back door escape routes. Anyone sly enough to sneak into a crowd and lift a wallet is usually sly enough to get past civilian security guards. While reasonable security should be expected, a hotel is a public place of business that relies on good customer relations in order to stay in business. Overly scrutinizing each individual who walks through the door would be just as rude and offensive as the front desk clerk brushing off the concerns of Ms. Yostos. Her complaint is legitimate, but she was victimized by another member of the public, not by the hotel or by the restaurant.
The hotel did respond to her complaint, even though the response letter sounded overly defensive and was not sent as promptly as it should have been. I also think that even though the theft was not the fault of the hotel, their poor choice in front desk clerks was, and they should have included a peace offering such as a complimentary night’s stay or a gift card.
Nevertheless, they did respond with an apology, and therefore, I think Ms. Yostos should drop the matter. The hotel was guilty of bad service, not a crime. What I really want to know is whether or not she ever got her wallet back.
A bit confused. The guest wonders whether the review should be removed only to discover it WAS removed already. So the real issue is not whether SHE should remove the review but rather why TripAdvisor did.
I am firmly of the opinion her review should stay on the site as originally written. Even if the hotel did not “own” the restaurant, if the average person believed the restaurant was a part of the hotel, the hotel does have a role here to act at least decently towards the victim of a crime. The hotel’s attitude (not our problem, shut up and go away) is very relevant as to what one’s experience may be like staying there. Her experience with the front desk (negatively) and valet (positively) directly reflect on the hotel itself.
Finally, the comment that hotels aren’t responsible for crimes that occur on their premises and that we should just suck it up makes my stomach churn. Laura, what if you were RAPED? Your post suggests the only review would be about your rapists uh, performance…
I would also like to add that the restaurant in question appears on the Grand Hotel’s web site under their “dining” tab. There is no indication that the restaurant is NOT a part of the hotel.
It seems to me that the real issue here (and I believe the OP thinks so too, from her letters) is that she asked the front desk people to call 911 and they totally refused. Why would it matter that the hotel and the restaurant have nothing to do with each other? If someone is in trouble and asks you to call 911, you call 911. I don’t get the feeling that she’s blaming the hotel for the robbery so much as for blowing her off when all she wanted was for them to call the police.
I agree with Amy & Neal, the tripadvisor site is for all factual reviews and Mary’s review was factual (as evidenced by the hotel’s response).
What I find most disturbing about this entire incident (aside from Mary being robbed) is that her review “disappeared” right after the hotel asked for its’ removal. If Tripadvisor will remove negative factual reviews to keep hotels and restaurants happy, then their site is nothing more than advertisements for establishments and should not be promoted as a review site.
Since my earler post did not answer the question of whether or not she should delete the review, I would just like to add (even though it’s a moot point right now, since somebody else apparently already deleted it,) that even though the the theft was not the hotel’s fault, there was an issue with customer service, and the horrible treatment she received from the front desk clerk deserves to be noted. In any case, a review is just a refection of one person’s experience and opinion – no more and no less. But, review sites do help to keep hotels and other businesses and service providers on their toes. None of them want a negative review, but negative reviews often lead to positive changes. So, my vote would be for her to keep the review up – if only she still had that option.
I suggest another review stating that remedial action has been taken and detailed by the hotel and as such the writer whould like to think her concerns have been addressed. Then any different marks on TripAdvisor.
If removal was possible it would make a mockery of the system. Hoteliers need to know when they make mistakes and show they can take action to avoid re-occurance. Consumers need to see just how effectivly that is carried out by the hotel management.
I participate on Tripadvisor all the time. I am disappointed that the review was removed. I should have a choice as a TA member to decide whether or not I think the initial review had merit. Yes, I would have liked to see the hotel’s response, too, but to have it all disappear is tacky! I thought better of TA.
My opinion is the hotel can only be faulted for a defective “online complaint forum” and a smart aleck front desk employee. It seems that both of these problems have been addressed.
By the way, I was once pickpocketed in the Paris train station. Should I call them and demand that they re-evaluate their security system?
As a Forum Destination Expert for TA I am aware that they will remove forum posts (and threads) that get very contentious but removing reviews takes a long time and involves quite a bit of work so I would be intrested to know the reasons they eventually give, if indeed they ever do.
It’s possible that as Ms Yostos didn’t actually stay at the hotel or use their facilities (that point is debatable I know) the hotel could argue that the review shouldn’t have been placed in the first place.
If she wanted to take the matter further then she could make a posting on the Minneapolis forum which would have the effect of letting people know what went on although people could report the thread as innapropriate and possibly (if enough people complained) get it removed.
I would recommend that the customer of this or any other travel facility should post the facts that: 1) the arrangement of the restaurant is such that persons with criminal intent can easily wander through the facility without being challenged by the staff – which in this specific case, resulted in a theft; 2) the facility personnel were not inclined to call to 9-1-1 on behalf of someone in their lobby (guest or not) which they admitted to being a “public” place; 3) the facility made efforts to suppress negative reports about them. This would be very useful information for me in selecting restaurant, lodging, or transportation offerings.
PS: If this lady had been physically assaulted in the lobby, would the staff have watched and done nothing? Seems like they would have done nothing because they “did not want to get involved.”
PPS: The objective of a travel review site (IMHO) is to give others a sense of a travel facility and its environment. It is useful information to know that pickpockets frequent a certain transportation medium. Whether the facility wants to act on the review or not is their business and not that of the customer.
I’m disappointed also that the review was deleted. As a woman that travels alone, I’d be really upset if I asked for help in calling the police and the employee refused for ANY reason. This employee should have been fired–not relocated.
The main point of Mary’s review is that she stated what happened to her–”my wallet was stolen… my friends proceeded to the front desk and they were not willing to call the police and said it wasnt their issue”–and the opinion she formed because of it–”i wouldnt feel safe to stay here.” The only TA reviews that I consider in a booking decision are those that explain–giving details like service, cleanliness of the room, wait time, etc.–why a reviewer likes or dislikes a property.
If the review had remained on TripAdvisor, Mary should have left it there, but added the hotel’s response. Mary’s situation was horrible and I do not think the front desk’s response was acceptable either from a service point-of-view or a humanitarian one, but it is important to see how an establishment or business responds when things go wrong. Few vacations or events are 100% “perfect”. Geoff’s reply to Mary was good except for the part where he asked her to remove the review. If TA allowed it or kept her review, Mary could have put an ETA… edited to add… line where she explained the hotel’s response and let the readers to decide for themselves whether to visit the hotel or not.
I say put the review up again but add the follow up from the hotel. This way its not a bad review and its not good either. Shows the hotel does care in some aspect.
I am a Destination Expert on TripAdvisor and post my share of reviews. I perceive one of the purposes of user reviews is to hear from people who actually stay (or visit) a hotel rather than a single professional reviewer for a guide book who might walk through, maybe look at a room or two with staff, and then leave. The professional reviewer never hears the banging pipes at night, the construction next door off and on, or in this case, experience the thief in the second floor restaurant.
By all means the review should have been kept on line, and it should be reposted. It happened to a hotel guest inside the walls of the hotel. If TA removes it, then we should hear the reasons. Editing and omitting reviews strikes at the very heart of the “independent” reviews by travelers.
I travel extensively overseas, can see and “feel” the lobby security at many properties, and appreciate the effort to protect guests. These usually are men in black suits and ear buds, very alert and scanning the room. Many times they note the faces and greet me the second or third time I enter the hotel. This effort at prevention warns potential criminals that there are personnel hired to catch them if necessary.
First, apparently there were no security personnel in the lobby. Second, the front desk was non-responsive in pursuing the thief. Third, they would not even help after the fact. All good reasons to tell potential guests to stay away. Security is always a concern and this abject lack of effort should be noted prominently.
I agree with other comments that the post should stay up on Trip Advisor if for no other reason than to remind people to keep an eye on their belongings in public places particularily hotels, hospitals (one of the worst) and any place the “public” can easily walk through. Hanging your purse on the back of a chair is also an invitation to theft.
As a longtime travel writer and commentator I would say generally the least helpful people at a hotel are likely at the front desk as well as the most helpful. It’s a real luck of the draw which you’ll run into.
I had a similar experience with a hotel in Phoenix recently. The front desk was unhelpful and I posted a less than glowing review. The manager tracked me down, called me, apologized and offered me a voucher for 2 free nights. I don’t want to remove the review because it was in fact my experience but at the same time I’d like to let folks know that the manager stepped up to the plate. There’s no way to do that on TripAdvisor (I was not asked to remove my review either).
Speaking of deletions, is it my imagination, or have several of the comments previously posted on this thread been deleted?!?
@Good Doctor, I don’t think so.
Ah – I’ve identifed the source of the confusion – the identical article (including the same photo) was posted on elliott.org and so far has attracted 78 comments, including some from eyewitnesses. My mistake – feel free to delete my comment above! :-)