Ramada Inn Customer Care
PO Box 4090
Aberdeen, South Dakota 57402
On August 31, 2012, I reserved a room with two beds for the evening of September 1 at the Ramada Inn located on Arrowhead Town Center Drive in Glendale, Arizona. The online reservation was for a room with two beds. My brother and I were in town for our father’s funeral, on September 1.
Upon arriving at the Arrowhead Ramada Inn, we checked in with the clerk at the hotel’s front desk. We went to our assigned room and discovered the room to be in severe disarray. Both beds were unmade. The sheets and bed covers were in disarray, and it appeared the sheets had not been changed. Towels were crumpled and scattered in the bathroom and on top of one bed. It was clear the housekeeping staff had not cleaned this room.
I went down to request that we be assigned another room. The clerk at the front desk informed me there were no more rooms with two beds, and the only rooms available were with one bed. I requested that the room be cleaned. The Front Desk Clerk spitefully stated it was not her job to attend to rooms. She also stated the room cleaning staff had left for the day and could not be summoned.
I went back to the room to inform my brother of our predicament. He went to the lobby and spoke to the Front Desk Clerk, a young female dressed in blue jeans, a white T-shirt, wearing a red bandana across her forehead – hardly the type of dress expected from a Ramada Inn desk clerk.
After speaking to the clerk, my brother was left with the impression the clerk would attempt to contact someone from housekeeping to clean the room. As we waited for someone to arrive, my brother went down a second time to inquire about being offered other accommodations. My brother informs me the clerk became excessively defensive, to the point of being unprofessional. When asked for her name, the clerk refused to divulge her name. At this point, she became belligerent. My brother attempted to take a photograph of the clerk, and she told him she felt she was being harassed and she would call the police.
He told her to go ahead and call the police. He sat on the couch in the lobby until the police arrived. The clerk spoke with the police first, and then my brother started to explain the situation regarding the condition of our assigned room and unavailability of another room. While my brother gave his account to the police officer, the clerk repeatedly interrupted. The officer told the clerk if she interrupted one more time, the police would leave the hotel. The officer emphasized the situation was a civil matter.
The officer and my brother, also a police officer, stepped outside so they could finish the conversation. Another officer remained with the clerk in the lobby. The clerk continued to act in a belligerent and irrational manner. She resorted to making false accusations, fabricating events, and stating my brother and I had somehow threatened her. She stated I had thrown two bags of trash on her desk.
None of these events were true. For whatever reason, the clerk decided to fabricate her statements.
My brother asked to review the video tape in the lobby. The officer went inside and asked the clerk about video monitoring in the lobby, to find out that none existed. The officer informed us the clerk called her manager. The hotel’s manager, Matt Pacheco, stated that we were to leave the hotel.
Before we left, the police handed my brother a business card for Matt Pacheco and suggested we file a complaint with Ramada Inn Corporation. We gladly left and found other accommodations.
The front desk clerk refused to provide her name when asked, and became increasingly belligerent. Her conduct was rude and unprofessional. She lied to police, repeatedly interrupted while my brother spoke with police, and fabricated events when she gave her version of the situation.
The front desk clerk on duty the evening of September 1 obviously has an integrity problem. No person of professional demeanor and respectable character would lie to police or fabricate events.
What the clerk could have done to rectify the situation was to see if other accommodations were available at another nearby hotel, or see if the room could have been cleaned. She did none of these.
The manager, who was not present, should have done more than simply tell the clerk we had to leave. At a minimum, the manager should have sought to hear the other version of the fabricated story he was being told by the clerk. The conduct of both the clerk and the manager were extremely unprofessional.
Even the two police officers stated the clerk was unreasonable. They threatened to leave due to the belligerent conduct of the clerk. They also suggested we file a complaint with Ramada Inn. Seeing the futility of the situation, the police offered us a ride to another nearby hotel.
The cost of the room at the Ramada Inn Arrowhead, $66.59, was withdrawn from my banking account on September 4, three days following the incident. Since we did not stay at the Ramada Inn, and were forced to find other accommodations at a different hotel, the withdraw of these funds constitutes fraud, in accordance with definitions of fraud in Arizona Revised Statutes and United States Code.
As of the completion of this statement , I have not yet been refunded the cost of the room at the Ramada Inn Arrowhead. Ramada later informed me the amount of $66.59 would never be refunded back to me. Photographs illustrating the condition of the room we were assigned accompany this statement.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
