Butlins help - items left in our room 25 April 2022 at 3:13PM in UK holidays, days out & entertainments 9 replies 583 views

BoBoDobie

We stayed 3 nights at Butlins back in February. The day we left we were approximately 25 mins away from Skegness when my daughter realised she’d left her much loved Teddy in our room 🙈. I rang site immediately, told them the room number we’d been in and a helpful lady took all the details explaining someone would be in touch in a few days time. 

Then my daughter remembered she’d left her iPhone charger plugged in too so I rang back to report that too. In hindsight I wish I’d have turned the car and drove back but we’d dogs to pick up from kennels etc and it would’ve added over an hour to our journey time. 

I heard nothing so rang them a few days later and they had nothing to report so I left it over the weekend and rang again and still they’d nothing. The next day I got a vm from them saying they had found nothing. 

I couldn’t believe it. They were left in the bedroom of our locked apartment. The only people to have access from us leaving was the cleaners and I bet they didn’t have the same trouble finding the tip we’d left them. I didn’t expect them to find the iPhone charger but a child’s teddy bear I thought would be found.

I was really unhappy so I wrote a letter of complaint to Butlins md outlining what I’ve said. Four weeks went by and I’d had no acknowledgement or response. So I wrote again, this time sending it tracked/signed for.  Within a few days I got an email from their customer services team acknowledging the [2nd] letter but basically washing their hands of it stating that “As your holiday was taken over 6 weeks ago, it is hoped you will appreciate that we are unable to carry out a full investigation into your comments, as we ask our guests to write to us within 28 days of returning from their holiday; as noted in our terms and conditions.”

and then they went on to say they couldn’t be responsible for property left on site etc. which I understand if we’d have left them in a bar/restaurant/public area but these were in our locked apartment.

I did write within 28 days I wrote straight away when they left me the van saying they couldn’t find them. I’ve since then been back and forth with customer services and got nowhere as I didn’t adhere to this 28 days thing. I have no proof of postage for the first letter but I did write. And sent a copy with the second letter I sent. 

I just find it hard to believe they can’t /won’t trace back staff records to pull whomever cleaned the room to one side. Is there anyway of escalating this with some sort of governing body or am I on a hiding to nowhere?

[Deleted User]

No. There's no governing body for bears left at Butlins. 

The bear will unfortunately be long gone now, so you'll need to move on.

BoBoDobie

Deleted_User said:

No. There's no governing body for bears left at Butlins. 

The bear will unfortunately be long gone now, so you'll need to move on.

Is there no ombudsman or anything like that Butlins have to adhere to?

TELLIT01

It's entirely likely that the teddy was caught up in the rest of the bedding which was removed when you left and not discovered until the laundry was sorted.  At that point it was probably chucked away because they had no idea where it came from.  Butlins claim they look but didn't find anything so I'm not sure what action you think could/would be taken even if there was an independent third party to report this to.

BoBoDobie

TELLIT01 said:

It's entirely likely that the teddy was caught up in the rest of the bedding which was removed when you left and not discovered until the laundry was sorted.  At that point it was probably chucked away because they had no idea where it came from.  Butlins claim they look but didn't find anything so I'm not sure what action you think could/would be taken even if there was an independent third party to report this to.

Thank you. It was about 40cm big in bright rainbow colours, left sat on her pillow when she’d made her bed so unlikely to be missed. Or the iPhone charger which was plugged in on the bedside table. It just seems tantamount to theft that they were left in a locked room and yet they ‘couldn’t find them’. I think it’s more the unwillingness to put any effort into looking into it based solely on the fact they say I didn’t report it in time. Which is a lie because I did. And seems they do have a process they would investigate if reported within a time frame. 

anotheruser

BoBoDobie said:

k3lvc said:

BoBoDobie said:

Deleted_User said:

No. There's no governing body for bears left at Butlins. 

The bear will unfortunately be long gone now, so you'll need to move on.

Is there no ombudsman or anything like that Butlins have to adhere to?

Try the 'lost teddy bear' ombudsman - but probably also best reporting the child who left the teddy bear as well.

Let us know how you get on 

I don’t know why the need for sarcasm, if you can’t say anything helpful or kind don’t bother replying to me

You need to be a little realistic though.

You have complained but what do you want out of it?  Money?  A free holiday?
You want the bear but that isn't an option, so the sooner you accept that, the sooner everyone can all move on.

Butlins is a private company and thus is not particularly answerable to anyone or any governing body (it isn't like airlines or travel companies that are ATOL protected or whatever, which is not what you'd need anyway).

The question still stands - what are you expecting from your complaint?
If it's a "we're sorry" then pretend the first letter said that word and move on.  It makes no difference whether they did or not as the end result will be the same.

sillyvixen

Both items left in plain sight, did you not think to do a quick check of the room before handing back the keys? Most people do.

TELLIT01

sillyvixen said:

Both items left in plain sight, did you not think to do a quick check of the room before handing back the keys? Most people do.

Fair comment.  It's certainly the final thing we do before leaving.  Missing the charger if it was in the socket would be no surprise, but a large rainbow coloured bear??

BoBoDobie

anotheruser said:

BoBoDobie said:

k3lvc said:

BoBoDobie said:

Deleted_User said:

No. There's no governing body for bears left at Butlins. 

The bear will unfortunately be long gone now, so you'll need to move on.

Is there no ombudsman or anything like that Butlins have to adhere to?

Try the 'lost teddy bear' ombudsman - but probably also best reporting the child who left the teddy bear as well.

Let us know how you get on 

I don’t know why the need for sarcasm, if you can’t say anything helpful or kind don’t bother replying to me

You need to be a little realistic though.

You have complained but what do you want out of it?  Money?  A free holiday?
You want the bear but that isn't an option, so the sooner you accept that, the sooner everyone can all move on.

Butlins is a private company and thus is not particularly answerable to anyone or any governing body (it isn't like airlines or travel companies that are ATOL protected or whatever, which is not what you'd need anyway).

The question still stands - what are you expecting from your complaint?
If it's a "we're sorry" then pretend the first letter said that word and move on.  It makes no difference whether they did or not as the end result will be the same.

They’d be willing to to do a ‘full investigation’ (their words not mine)  whatever that entails, if a complaint is raised within 28 days. Which I did. So they have the infrastructure/procedures to persue this but won’t because they wrongly claim I didn’t raise it in time. 

I just can’t believe it’s legal. Someone had taken something that doesn’t belong to them is the crux of my complaint. So If I find a diamond ring at the swimming baths then in I’m just entitled to keep it and too bad for the owner? Butlins should be more interested in their staff and their honestly (or lack thereof) and should be looking at who cleaned that room. God forbid something of real value/meaning is lost.  

p00hsticks

BoBoDobie said:

anotheruser said:

BoBoDobie said:

k3lvc said:

BoBoDobie said:

Deleted_User said:

No. There's no governing body for bears left at Butlins. 

The bear will unfortunately be long gone now, so you'll need to move on.

Is there no ombudsman or anything like that Butlins have to adhere to?

Try the 'lost teddy bear' ombudsman - but probably also best reporting the child who left the teddy bear as well.

Let us know how you get on 

I don’t know why the need for sarcasm, if you can’t say anything helpful or kind don’t bother replying to me

You need to be a little realistic though.

You have complained but what do you want out of it?  Money?  A free holiday?
You want the bear but that isn't an option, so the sooner you accept that, the sooner everyone can all move on.

Butlins is a private company and thus is not particularly answerable to anyone or any governing body (it isn't like airlines or travel companies that are ATOL protected or whatever, which is not what you'd need anyway).

The question still stands - what are you expecting from your complaint?
If it's a "we're sorry" then pretend the first letter said that word and move on.  It makes no difference whether they did or not as the end result will be the same.

I just can’t believe it’s legal. Someone had taken something that doesn’t belong to them is the crux of my complaint.

I very much doubt that someone has actively taken it to keep - it's far more likely that the items were just discarded with the rubbish when the room was cleaned after you left.