The Blazing Donkey in Ham, Sandwich, Kent

kentcouple

Hi,

Yep I have just checked back and it has been taken down! Basically, the staff member seemed to have been treated in the same way as most of his customers i.e. not well!

Mandrake

As an ex member of staff I can assure you that this place and the Dog Inn at Wingham are just plain awful .
Weddings are organized , money taken and then the outcome becomes the problem for the staff ,while the owner vanishes !
Underage staff at both places serving alcohol , low paid possibly illegal romanians working behind the scenes , staff waiting forever for their money mostly cash paid ,no taxes or social declared !!!!!!
Cash for weddings , no VAT !!!!
Everything he does is dodgy , illegal and the poor customers are just treated with total contempt .
Last few posts on Trip Advisor are obviously from him and the few friends he has .
He is the most despised man in the village !!!!!
Kent County Council , the Newspapers as well as relevant authorities need to act to get this cowboy out of business !

kentcouple

Wow! I had kind of guessed that these were the kind of things that would go on but scary to hear it all. We reported him to KCC after our wedding as he really ruined the day. It's good this thread is here to let people know as, as you say it looks like the tripadvisor reviews are pretty biased recently!

Homeagain

Two things, it is not often that you see 100% excellent ratings on Trip Adviser, no matter how good the place is. Suspicious in itself I would say. Also, I live in Deal and Ham is certainly more Sandwich than Deal. Thanks to this forum, the Blazing Donkey is not a place I will ever spend my hard earned money in!!

C4ND1

I had mistakenly cancelled my booking with the above hotel on booking.com. I am some what disappointed that this is so easy to do with no fail safes in place to prevent it from occurring. 1 click and that’s it, cancelled. Anyway..........

I called the hotel immediately to discuss this matter and sent them an email asking them to reinstate my room for that night.

I talked to the owner Richard Martin over the phone, who actually called himself Alan, which I believe is the photographer, not the owner. But obviously he did not want to take ownership of which he was about to tell me. Which was that, the room had now been booked out to someone else and that I would not be getting the room or any sort of refund. Please bare in mind that this was all within approximately 20 mins of me accidently cancelling the room. With this I challenged the decision and this ended up with Richard Martin (the hotel owner) hanging up the phone on me!

So I went to visit Richard Martin at the hotel as he would not talk to me over the phone. I wanted to discuss why he felt the need to hang up on me and why he had further booked the room so fast and why he couldn’t give me a refund.

He was a very very unpleasant, unwelcoming abusive man needless to say. Basically this man has no heart, conscious and does not believe in customer service! FACT! He said in business his brutal, and that it was my fault and that I had to live with it, and I wont be seeing my money at all. That’s his to keep.

He told me that he will not refund me or give me a room for that night and that the room has now gone to a higher bidder. I tried to reason with Richard Martin with absolutely no success what so ever, and he asked me to leave the site. Which I did.

The day after I went to the website I booked the hotel through, and to my surprise there was still a room available on the same night I had booked.
Richard Martin had lied to me, saying all rooms were booked out when I was trying to remedy this situation the day before. It’s clear to me now that he said this so he could steal my money and use the terms and conditions as a get out clause.
I am furthermore disgusted.
Clearly there is a room still available. Not that I would ever stay there now after this disgraceful situation.
Richard Martin has breached the basic consumer rights:

Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977
The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999

Richard Martin seriously lacks knowledge in consumer rights, and basic manners. Although I get the impression he thinks he knows it all. I cannot believe this hotel still gets customers, honestly. I have heard a lot about the Blazing Donkey and Richard Martin aka Alan since this incident and everyone has said the same about him and his establishment. I just wish I had known sooner so I did not have to go through this total gross misconduct.

Mistakes happen, in my case unfortunately, but any normal human being would not take this and use it against you like Richard Martin has done to me.

Needless to say I have forwarded this matter to Rogue Traders, Watch Dog & Trading Standards. I think anyone that has had an issue needs to do the same. :money:

ljonski

A resurrection of that old chestnut, the Blazing Donkey in Ham, Sandwich, Kent. Surely then if the room had been booked out to someone else within 20minutes then you would be legally entitled to a refund?

marywooyeah

I guess it would depend, I think in law there wouldnt be a specific right to a refund if the consumer cancelled the booking and I would bet there would be ts and cs to this effect given the reviews of this place.

You would have thought however that given the short space of time the room would be reinstated or a refund as a goodwill gesture.

Candi in future look for rooms on booking.com with free cancellation in case this happens again and I would complain to booking.com themselves regarding the layoutnof the website that led to this in the first place.

wealdroam

C4ND1 wrote: »

...He told me that he will not refund me or give me a room for that night and that the room has now gone to a higher bidder.

C4ND1, have a read of this post on the Consumer Rights board:

Is a deposit ever refundable?

Although that post is discussing deposits, I believe your situation is the same.

beks

A chance google brought me back to my old thread!!! Blast from the past!! It's a shame that a few years on, Richard Martin of the Blazing Donkey has not changed his ways. He just doesn't seem to learn ......

Mrmrs

Unfortunately alike so many others we have also fallen prey to the Blazing Donkey (owner, Richard Martin)

It is our aim to expose this con man and other establishments. He has stolen our wedding deposit, ignored letters, e-mails and telephone calls and lies continually.

He is known by the courts and Trading Standards yet still manages to get away with it.

We are currently looking for anybody that has had an issue with this man / establishment, no matter how long ago as we wish to gather all of the information that we can so that we are able to supply watchdog and national newspapers with the relevant information so that we can stop this man from conning anymore innocent victims.