HotelChatter

Hotel Hell / Hotels Behaving Badly / → All Tags

Steer Clear of Crazy Drunk French Inn Owner

[Ed. Note: This is an extremely hellish Hotel Hell. As always this is just one side of the story, but seeing as local authorities allegedly escorted the guest and family out of harm's way and Visa backed up this person's claims well, you know. But as always, we invite the inn owner to respond with the other side of the story.]

On the night of July 14, 2004, the proprietor of Les Chenes Blancs, a downscale inn in rural France where my family and I were staying en route to Avignon, got drunk, went on an anti-American screaming rampage against my wife and three small children, attempted to extort 2,000 Euros (= 2,500 US$) from me by holding my family's passports and luggage hostage, cut off the phone lines when we tried to call the police, attacked me physically and stole our one-year-old son's US passport.

All of this occurred in front of several other horrified guests who have subsequently given testimony to the relevant authorities.

His actions resulted in my family and five other guests being evacuated from the inn in the middle of the night by the local Municipal Police (summoned by a guest with a mobile phone), formal criminal charges being filed against him with the French National Police in Juan-Les-Pins, and an investigation by the US State Department into the stolen passport.

Now it appears he has also attempted to defraud VISA through our US Bank account.

The day after the attack, my wife and I called all our credit card companies, including US Bank, to confirm that no unauthorized charges had been made. We were therefore surprised to come back from our trip to find this fake $1,359 charge on our statement. We did not authorize this charge, nor is Les Chenes Blancs due any money from us for our brief stay there as confirmed by the French National Police when they investigated the incident.

Indeed, the proprietor of Les Chenes Blancs owes us for all the costs associated with traveling to the US Consulate in Barcelona to replace the passport he stole.

I am an international businessman who has spent considerable time overseas. This is the most outrageous incident that has ever occurred to me on my travels and I find it hard to believe that Les Chenes Blancs (which was evidently recently acquired) is the sort of vendor VISA wants to be involvedwith. Indeed, I understand that this is not the first time since its acquisition that this sort of incident has occurred there.