Real life MMD: Do I punish the cleaner?

edaniels1983

£200 isnt excessive for toiletries. it could be a bottle of perfume(£50), make up items (£10 each x 10) face creams(£20) or maybe a pair of hair straighteners?? GHDs are £100+ and some general toileteries?

most of us walk arround with over £500 worth oif stuff each day. my self for example-- blackberry mobile phone, ipod touch, gold earings, gold wedding band, not to mention how much clothes actually cost that we are wearing. it all adds up. so to say £200 is none-believable is rubbish.

i would personally want my money back. especially if no effort has been made to retreive the bag from the rubbish.(as it was wrapped in bags, it would survive a stint in a bin)!

it would be upto the maid to complain to the manager if she didnt agree with her wages being docked. it wouldnt be my problem.

TurkishTutor

Not really a comment on the moral dilemma, but having lived in Istanbul for 10 years, I must say this sounds a bit dodgy, and the best way to resolve it (at the time, obviously) would be to threaten to call in the Tourist Police.

Yes, they do exist, and are there to stop dodgy practices against tourists, as the name implies! They are quite tough and often just the threat of them magically resolves problems.

PhiltheBear

TurkishTutor wrote: »

Not really a comment on the moral dilemma, but having lived in Istanbul for 10 years, I must say this sounds a bit dodgy, and the best way to resolve it (at the time, obviously) would be to threaten to call in the Tourist Police.

Yes, they do exist, and are there to stop dodgy practices against tourists, as the name implies! They are quite tough and often just the threat of them magically resolves problems.

That's the most sensible post in this whole thread.

Not least because the tourist police would also be able to check whether or not the person claiming the loss had actually lost £200 worth of stuff.

You may remember the episode not long ago when a couple of English girls claimed that stuff had gone from their hotel room in Brazil? Turned out that they were lying and trying to get more money?

But the principle is simple. If the goods existed and have vanished then the hotel makes good the loss. What they do with the cleaner - whether it's a genuine mistake or theft - is simply their problem. It's NOTHING to do with the person who lost the goods.

Saetana

meher wrote: »

If I can afford £200 worth toiletry bag then I should be able to handle the loss gracefully and not at the expense of another person's job prospects or poor wages.

Here we go again! I could not afford to replace £200 worth of toiletries/makeup/perfume whatever as I am on a low income and buy these things one at a time or get them as gifts. Why are you assuming the OP can afford to take a £200 hit? Why are you so sure that the maid is on a terrible wage and even if she is she may well be a thief!

The more I think about this the more I think this is a scam, either the cleaner is a thief because you are not telling me that anyone's toiletry bag (whether £20 or £200) is so light it can be mistaken as rubbish or she is badly trained and/or stupid! The manager is trying to shame the OP into not making a claim in my opinion. This sounds more than a little dubious, was there no attempt made to recover the bag? All things considered, I would want my money back. What kind of customer service would we get if we put up with being ripped off all the time?

Saetana

Lol, I wrote the above post whilst reading the thread and hadn't realised how things had, er, well not exactly gone off-topic but that a slanging match was rapidly developing.

TurkishTutor's suggestion was the most sensible and definitely the way to go now in my opinion. Maybe thats a warning to the rest of us to check if such a thing as "tourist police" exist when we are going abroad? This could have saved a lot of aggrevation but I daresay the OP, like most of us, didn't know they existed. I'd certainly complain to my tour operator or travel agent and try to get a refund from them.

shellsuit

CornishBlonde wrote: »

Whilst I sympathise with your loss, I have to say that I would not make a claim; the pay in Turkey is very poor compared to what we earn here in the UK; it will take that girl weeks to repay 200 quid. I have holidayed in Turkey many, many times over the last 15 years in many different types of accommodation and have always found the staff very honest and trustworthy. We all without exception make mistakes; if the items were in plastic bags it's quite easy to mistake the stuff for rubbish. Someone suggested that the weight of the bag should have made the girl think twice before throwing it away as rubbish; how many of us have left half-bottles of wine, food, etc etc in our room for the hotel staff to clear away - I have for one!!

As for the girl having taken the items to use herself, most female staff (usually devout Muslim) wear little or no make up at all. If anyone disagrees with me tough ****, I'm speaking from my own experiences. PS, I'm off to Turkey again in September with my Superdrug essentials along with my Chanel perfume so beat me!!

Ridiculous.

dors01

Sorry, but rapido is right and also when you are staying on holiday you are staying in someone elses property and it is a fact that you are not the only key holder.
When you buy things for your house that is your house and no one else has the right to enter your property without your permission.
When you look in hotel rooms and receptions there are disclaimers stating that you should keep your valuables either with you or locked in a safe.
The best thing to do if you dont want anyone including cleaners entering your room while you are not there is to request either when booking or on arrival at the hotel that you do not want anyone to enter your room without you being there then they should oblige you.
The point is though that the cleaner has admitted throwing the things away so the hotel should reimburse you.

Essex123 wrote: »

Why should you have to.

You might as well say you shouldn't buy expensive things for your home in case a local chancer happens to break into your house.

I agree with shellsuit - it was a ridiculous thing to say

pineapple

It's quite the norm in some countries for staff to have to pay for losses/breakages/accidents considered to be their fault. Employers see it as a way of cutting down on carelessness and theft.
But I still think it comes down to where the bag was left etc. Let's not forget guests leave all sorts of rubbish wrapped up - bottles, cans, half eaten sandwiches... Who's to know whether the cleaner hasn't been chastised in the past for leaving stuff? Some guests can be pretty arrogant, leaving litter all over the place and expecting it to be picked up where it falls.
The hotel should have clear policies about this ie nothing gets removed unless in the designated place.
In the meantime, as the guest, I would go with my gut instincts. If it WAS a mistake - perhaps a lesson learnt for the hotel, the staff and myself.

Essex123

dors01 wrote: »

Sorry, but rapido is right and also when you are staying on holiday you are staying in someone elses property and it is a fact that you are not the only key holder.
When you buy things for your house that is your house and no one else has the right to enter your property without your permission.
When you look in hotel rooms and receptions there are disclaimers stating that you should keep your valuables either with you or locked in a safe.
The best thing to do if you dont want anyone including cleaners entering your room while you are not there is to request either when booking or on arrival at the hotel that you do not want anyone to enter your room without you being there then they should oblige you.
The point is though that the cleaner has admitted throwing the things away so the hotel should reimburse you.

Whilst I personally lock valuables in the safe (money, passports, bank cards), I would not lock things away like toiletries, clothes etc.

As I think I said up the thread a bit - I am surprised that the hotel did not try and disclaim liability for this incident - in most jurisdictions they seem to have laws such as the Hotel Proprietors Act 1956 (from the UK). It would have been easy to deny liability, as it would have been one persons word against another.

I don't agree that people should ask for the cleaner not to come in the room. I pay for the service, and expect to get it. I also expect these people to be trustworthy. I should be able to leave what I want in my room without fear that the people I'm paying for accomodation are going to steal from me. In reality, I do secure the items I mentioned above for my own peace of mind.

However if the items were on display, it should not make it acceptable for the maid to steal them.

fatal1955

If I were to demand that a hotel cleaner (probably not particularly highly paid) must effectively pay me around £200 for a genuine mistake, my conscience would ruin the rest of my holiday. If you're like me, you might feel better about yourself if you just chose to forgive her - but then again we're all different...