Hey folks,
I had a really bad experience during my stay here in America. I feel kind of responsible to inform you about what happened to me. Maybe this will help prevent this from happening to any of you guys.
Especially all interns and all travelers alike should listen carefully to my story and forward this to anyone they know.
At the beginning our plan was to go to California and see the Redwood forests, as maybe some of you guys do! We were there for a whole weekend and stayed at the “Econo Lodge” in Crescent City, California. This was the cheapest Lodge we could find on the Internet, but at the end it was probably one of the most expensive mistakes I’ve ever made.
In all I paid with my Laptop and all the data on it. It was stolen out of my bag that was well secured.
The weekend ended up costing me $161 for the room + $5000 for the Laptop
So after the police checked the lodge they found out that their own maid stole the laptop! (The Laptop bag was still in her cleaning cart!!!)
They admitted to the Police (not to us!) that they started removing ALL of our stuff from the room, our cloth, bags, shoes, EVERYTHING but brought it back after a little while.
But now the more important thing for all travelers:
The Owner of the Econo Lodge fired the 3 maids involved in the theft/ in the crime. One of them was on the run. She was caught a week later by the police and she is in jail now – I don’t think she will stay there too long, even if she was wanted by the Police BEFORE she stole the laptop for other reasons the police didn’t reveal!
Think of that!!! They hired a person that was already on the WANTED LIST by the POLICE!!! The Owner even told me that they NEVER perform a background check on any employees!
BE AWARE of CRIMINALS EMPLOYEES in the ECONO LODGE!
What happened 2 days after that is for my opinion UNBELIEVABLE!
It’s the cherry on the Ice Cream!
They rehired the 2 criminal maids that are not in jail, just 2 days after all of that happened!!! I bet they even will rehire the maid that is/was? in jail, when she is released
They actually know that they are criminals and rehired them to clean the rooms of all the guests. The reason? They couldn’t find any fingerprints to prove it! Ridiculous!
What if they not only steal things from everyone, but hurt or murder people – for example when they got caught from a guest that is arriving too early?
Until now I did not have my laptop back, nor did I get any money from the Lodge (that seems responsible for my loss, because they are the ones that didn’t perform any background check on their employees) they didn’t really seem to be interested in the fact that the employees are criminals! As I already said: one of the maids was definitely on the wanted list by the police for other reasons! And of course every time that happens they “say” they have no insurance but as I found out they have to have! And if you find out, you will have to do YEARS of paperwork to get $400 (what you will lose in all the telephone calls and time you have to investigate to get it!)
I asked numerous times for them to cover my losses but they refused, stating it wasn’t their fault.
I will of course spread this story to craigslist, and all the hotel rating pages in the internet and I hope you will forward it to every one you want to warn about that DANGER of the ECONO LODGE!
Best regards from the victim
Andrea