It was an Inside Job!

September 20, 2005 at 10:34 AM | by ananda k | Comments (2)

[Publisher's Note: Hotel Maven ananda k will be joining us as a Contributing Editor here at HotelChatter. Below is a story of an awful personal experience she recently had at a NoCal hotel. As always, remember this is one person's experience at this particular hotel. However, you have to admit, getting your purse snatched out of your room can sure ruin your hotel stay in a hurry.]

I spent three cushy nights at the Casa Madrona Hotel in Sausalito, CA before being burglarized while I lay silent and stiff from fear.

At some point between sleep and wake, at roughly four in the morning I heard a noise, like running in the halls. But the lobby was nowhere near my room, and then it hit me... someone was in my room. I froze. Maybe I left my room door ajar. Of course, some drunken person mistook my room for his or her own and came in.

I heard shuffling. Then the door slammed. I jumped out of bed, threw on my robe and peeped through the peephole. Nobody was there.

Okay, it was all a mistake. I went back to bed.

A few hours later, I woke up to prepare for my day. I was attending a travel writing conference this day. I'd paid almost $700 to attend. I reached for my purse to head out. It was on floor next to my bed. Nothing.

The Burglary Continues...

I run to car. I must have left it in there. Nothing.

I threw both my hands on the front desk of the hotel, "I have an emergency! Someone came in my room and stole my purse while I was asleep!"

"No, this impossible," the front desk supervisor responded.

Again, "I have an emergency, someone stole my purse while I was asleep."

"This is impossible." He shook his head no.

The other front desk clerks heard my distress, but kept their heads to the pavement and continued taking reservations over the phone. Other guests stepped around me and continued about their business of checking in.

"Maybe you should report it to the police." He hands me the non-emergency number. Could he not have dialed for me?

"If anybody came in last night, the night auditor would know. He didn't hear anyone come in."

I retreated to room, dialed the number and cried some more. Nobody believed me, a twenty-something, African-American female that was traveling alone.

A policeman came minutes later, and while he thought the story was a little far fetched, he thoroughly investigated all the hotel staff and looked for any holes in the story and in my hotel room door.

I spent hours canceling my credit cards and missed the morning half of my conference.

Nearly thirty minutes later, the officer turned up at my room with several credit cards, my social security card, and a master key to the hotel in hand.

Apparently, a cab driver serendipitously stopped the officer as he was leaving my room and reported that a man tried to pay the cab bill with one of my traveler's checks. He'd left some of my cards scattered on the car floor, along with the master key.

It gets worse. When I called American Express to cancel my card, the woman who graciously helped me had the same exact atrocity happen to her at an Oakland hotel.

By the time word spread through the hotel, I was Casa Madrona's number one guest. They did not charge me for my stay and treated me to a really great dinner. However, my life was put in danger because of an inside job. My time and money was wasted. I have yet to hear back on status of my case with the police department, though I do appreciate the policeman that really took care of me that day. I am currently pursuing the matter further with the Casa Madrona.

I was the victim of an inside job. Who's next? What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen to others?

Related Stories:
· Casa Madrona Hotel Reviews [TripAdvisor]

Comments (2)

Return to » It was an Inside Job!

to others??

How about a little primer in how hotels deal with the issue of security and doors.

First of all, as a long time employee in the hotel industry, i would NEVER stay in a hotel that still had old-fashioned brass keys. They are expensive to replace when an employee loses or fails to return a key, most often what i've found is the property will just swap the tumblers with another lock somewhere in the building which means that a master key would still work. Most franchises will not allow a property with brass keys, but i guess there could be some smaller or independent properties who still use them.

Electronic keys are much more secure. Each time the room changes hands or a key expires or a new key is issued and swiped through the lock, then all old keys issued are no longer active. Also these locks are relatively smart, and if a master key is used to open the door, the locks can be read to find out whose key it was.

Electronic locks usually also have a deadbolt switch on the inside and normal master keys will not throw open the deadbolt lock. For personal safety when in the room, you should always throw the deadbolt lock for added safety.

There are keys that will open the deadbolt designed to be used in an emergency. sometimes these are normal keys and sometimes they are specially coded keycards. Unless someone at the hotel was very much in on it, they wouldn't have access to this kind of key. In fact at some places i've worked its in a little box on the wall with the "in case of emergency, break glass" kind of set up, so if it is used, then EVERYBODY knows it.

Also, most guest room doors also have some kind of additional physical lock on the door. In some cases it's a chain lock in others its the more common oval fold-over latch kind of thing. There's no way anyone can open this lock without making quite a bit of noise as the door will stop if anyone attempts to open it from the outside. they can be cut but someone walking down the hall with bolt cutters normally draws attention to themselves and will probably draw your attention even if alseep.

This again provides another level of protection or at least of alert should anyone attempt to gain access to your room.

Unfortunately only the normal door lock can be engaged if you are out of the room, hence the popularity of in-room safes.

anyone have other tips to add?

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