Complaint Review: Days Inn

Why I Suggest You Stay Away from Days Inn, or
How my Family and I Had a Wonderful Vacation Despite being Held
at Gunpoint

My name is Brooks Jones. I created this site to keep what happened
to me from happening to you!
True, this is only one person's story, but if you keep reading,
you'll see--it's pretty incredible.
___________________________
Part I: D.C. Here We Come!

I've been to Washington several times before. When my
mother suggested we visit our nation's capital this summer
for vacation, she also gave me the task of finding accommodations
for the trip. Because I knew the Days Inn chain was in our price
range, and because I could count on a certain level of quality, I
chose them first. [Mistake #1!]

After doing a price/features comparison on the internet, I booked
rooms at the Days Inn Gateway [Mistake #2!], mainly because they
had a free shuttle to the Union Station metro stop, which is the
tourist's cheap and fast ticket to anywhere in the surrounding
area. I also noted that they had a pool, where my nine-year-old son
could cool off after our daily sightseeing. I booked two non-
smoking rooms, one for my husband and myself, and one for my
mother, sister and aforementioned son. We arrived on Monday, July
12 and planned to depart Friday, July 16.

As soon as we had located the hotel, I was dismayed to
discover that it was a two-story structure with open halls in a not-
so-nice part of town. Of course, I
could not have known about the neighborhood from the internet, but
the hotel information I found mentioned nothing about the open
halls,which might have been a reason for me to choose another hotel.

After checking in on Monday, July 12 at 1:30 PM to rooms 247 and
246, my husband and I noted
that our tub had not been cleaned out. Also, our toilet clogged up
after one flush. We asked someone at the front desk to please send
someone up to address these concerns. One of the housekeepers
came up right away to check the tub, and a handyman worked on the
toilet with a plunger.

(Foreshadowing alert: this was the first and only time we received
prompt service at this hotel, however, as you'll see, this event
has future significance.) We left while this was going on and went
downtown to the Mall.
__________________________________
Part II: Give Me All Your Money

The next morning (Tuesday, July 13 at 8:10 AM) I went next
door to my mom's room to see how close they were to being
ready. I stayed in the room about ten minutes, and then went
back to our room and opened the door with my key. I was
startled to see a tall youth holding a gun behind the door who
greeted me with Give me all your money. He had my
husband and I wait in the bathroom while he went through all
our belongings looking for cash. A few minutes later, we
heard our son's voice in the room and panicked--but luckily the
robber had already left, with all our
spending cash ($150) and oddly enough, my inexpensive pocket camera
(he even took it out of its case!). After making sure that everyone
in my family was safe, my husband went immediately down to the
lobby to call the police.

I realize that this could have happened to anyone and therefore I
don't hold Days Inn responsible for the incident. However, I DO
hold the hotel responsible for the following fact: the detective
called in to investigate the crime (Thomas Austin-Braxton) told us
that when he asked about the surveillance cameras on our floor, a
hotel employee told him that the camera was not operational and no
tape was in the recorder that day. Later that same morning, my
husband had a brief conversation with Ricardo Conde, the hotel
general manager, about the tape. Mr. Conde told my husband that the
surveillance camera service was a service not provided by many of
the other hotels in the area, and that yes, there was a tape in the
camera recording at the time of the crime, the police could come
back later to pick it up, and that he didn't know where the
detective had gotten his information. Mr. Conde also said
something to my husband about possibly comping our room because
of the incident.
___________________________
Part III: From Bad to Worse

Although quite shaken by the morning's events, we left the
hotel an hour and a half later (after the investigation) to go
sightseeing downtown. When we returned at approximately
7:30 PM, no one had cleaned either room, and the toilet in
our room (246) overflowed. I went down to the front desk at
8:00 PM, told them about the uncleaned rooms and the
toilet, and asked to be moved to two rooms closer to the
lobby for safety. Crystal Brown, the shift supervisor that
evening, told me repeatedly that there were no more
non-smoking rooms available. I then asked for someone to
please come up and clean the rooms and un-clog the toilet. I
was told by Karen Rivera, the head of housekeeping, that
there was nothing she could do about the cleaning because all the
cleaning staff left at 6:00 PM.

She said several times that all she could do was bring up some
fresh towels. During this exchange, Karen said several times to
Crystal that she wasn't even supposed to be working and she
couldn't wait to get out of there. At one point, when I must have
looked especially exasperated, Crystal said to me: Don't cry on me
now. Looking back on the events, I wish I had checked out of the
hotel at this point. Since I didn't, that was Mistake #3!

After a few minutes of this, Damon, the hotel handyman, came in.
Karen asked him to go up and fix our toilet. He responded Nobody
should have rented out that room. I can try to fix the toilet, but
it'll just clog up again. Something is wrong with it. Then he
asked me if it was coming up through the tub. I said Yes! and
suddenly understood why our tub wasn't clean when we checked in.

Damon did go upstairs to our room but he was unable to fix the
toilet. At that point we moved to a clean, smoking room across the
hall--257. My mother, sister and son stayed in 247, even though it
hadn't been cleaned.
_______________________
Part IV: The Last Straw

The next day (Wednesday, July 14), after a blessedly uneventful
morning, we went sightseeing again, and at about 7:30 PM we came
back to the hotel. When my husband and I tried to open our door,
our keys didn't work, even though we had been issued new keys the
night before. After walking all the way back down to the lobby and
getting that straightened out, when we got back to the room and
opened the door, one look told us that again, the room hadn't been
cleaned at all, and in fact appeared completely untouched by
housekeeping.

Even though I knew from yesterday's events that the housekeeping
staff had already left for the day, I went back down to the front
desk and informed Karen of this. She responded by pulling out the
day's housekeeping record and she then showed me on the chart where
the room had been cleaned and checked! I then asked her, since she
clearly wouldn't take my word for it, to please come up to the
room with me so she could see for herself that the room was not
clean. Karen did, and after a brief visual inspection, she said
that she hadn't been here and therefore didn't know if it was
something we did or something they did but that all she could do
was to file a complaint about the staff member who should have
cleaned the room. I responded that since she was the head of
housekeeping herself, couldn't she clean the room while we waited
across the hall in my mother's room. Karen insisted that that
wasn't possible, that she had other duties and that all she
could do was bring up some fresh towels. At this I told her that I
was pretty fed up with their hotel and its staff, and since she
represented the housekeeping staff as far as I was concerned I
expected her to clean the room. She left the room abruptly, and
never brought up any fresh towels. Knowing that it was too
late to drive around trying to find another available hotel room, I
felt like a hostage and was absolutely infuriated. I spent the rest
of the evening drafting a letter to the Days Inn CEO.

The next morning (Thursday, July 15), I decided that the only way
to resolve the situation satisfactorily would be to leave. At about
8:00 AM I went down to the front desk and told Crystal Brown that I
wanted to speak to Mr. Conde. She told me that he wasn't yet in,
and when I asked when he would be in, she laughed nervously and
said Well, he's supposed to be here at 9:00, but we usually give
him a couple of hours to get here. So he'll be here around 11. I
told her that we wanted to check out and find other accommodations.
She offered to help us do that, saying that her sister worked at
the Days Inn downtown, but my husband and I both asserted that we
didn't want to ever stay in another Days Inn and that her ssistance
wouldn't be necessary. Crystal handed us our check out summaries,
and I then said I don't expect a free room here, but I do want to
stress to you that the service that my entire family has received
here hasn't been worth a penny. She said that there was nothing
she could do about that, that the only person who could do
anything was Mr. Conde. I suggested to Crystal that she call Mr.
Conde and tell him that we would be willing to wait for him before
leaving, but only for the amount of time it would take him to get
to the hotel. She did that, and said He says that if you can wait
30 or 40 minutes, he'll be here. Since it was 8:20 by then, I
said we would wait until 9:00.

We waited in the lobby. 9:00 came and went, and at 9:05 I went up
to the front desk and announced that we were leaving. Because I
felt strongly about the poor treatment by the hotel, we left
without checking out. I told Crystal to charge my credit card for
the rooms, if that's what she felt like she had to do. Then we
drove directly to the Embassy Suites in Alexandria, which was full.

They somehow made room for us after hearing our story, and from
that point on we had a completely delightful stay.
_________________
Part V: Aftermath

After returning to our hometown of Winston-Salem, NC, I put the
finishing touches on the letter I started while in D.C.(the website
you are reading now contains almost all the text I wrote in this
letter).

I sent a copy of this letter via certified mail to the CEO of Days
Inn, Joseph R. Kane, Jr., and I also faxed a copy to the hotel,
directed to Mr. Phinvom Lim, the owner of the Days Inn Gateway. I
know someone at Mr. Kane's office received my letter, because the
receipt arrived about a a week later, although it's hard to tell
who actually signed it (see for yourself at right).I do know that
the signature on the receipt does not match the fake laser-printed
one on the form letter I later received.

I was shocked to receive no response from either the Days Inn
Gateway, or the Days Inn corporate office at all, except for a form
letter that I received the week I returned to Winston-Salem (with an
outline of the policies regarding complaints), and $15 check that
arrived in the mail the week of August 27 with no explanation. When
I called the Days Inn customer service number (1-800-441-1618) a
few days later to inquire about the check, I was told that only a
presidential representative at another office could comment about
the case (#428720), and I was given another toll-free number to
call (1-800-577-9390). After calling this number, I was told that
usually letters do go out before any compensation is sent, and that
she couldn't explain why the check was sent out first. I explained
that I did appreciate that so far, no charges had appeared on my
credit card bill, but what I really wanted was some assurance that
the poor service that my family and I had received would not happen
again, either to me, or to anyone else unlucky enough to stay at
the Days Inn Gateway.

I then asked what the $15 check was for, and I was told that the
presidential office had reviewed my case and had come up with $15
worth of compensation. No other explanation was given.

I have still not received any other correspondence from Days Inn.
About two weeks after we got back, detective assigned to our case
called to let us know that a suspect had been pprehended who fit
the description we gave after the holdup. Apparently this suspect
tred another similar holdup in the same otel, but because the
target of the holdup as armed, a struggle ensued and the suspect
ended up getting shot with his own weapon! Therefore, the detective
drove down here to Winston-Salem to show us a photo lineup. Both
my husband and myself identified the suspect in custody (from a
group of nine). While here, we asked the detective if they had, in
fact, received a surveillance tape from the hotel. He assured us
that absolutely no tape exists that contains a recording of our
holdup at the hotel on that Tuesday morning. We are in the process
of testifying against the suspect, who is connected with several
similar crimes in the D.C. area.
___________________
Part VI: Conclusion
Because I have gotten no indication that the concerns outlined here
have been addressed at all, I recommend that no one stay at the
Days Inn Gateway when visiting Washington, D.C., so that no one
else is victimized as I was(either by a holdup, or by the
deplorable service).

Because I have never gotten a response from the Days Inn corporate
office that addresses my specific concerns, I'm worried that if
something like this happens to someone else staying in another Days
Inn, that person might have to go through the same hassle I did,
only to be handed a $15 check with no explanation. I am still
convinced that absolutely no one, starting with the head of
housekeeping at the Days Inn Gateway and going all the way up to
the CEO of Days Inn, cares at all about the quality (or lack
thereof) of our stay. I believe the very least Days Inn should do
is acknowledge a certified letter directly with a personal reply,
and an offer to cover the extra hotel expenses we incurred on our
last night in Washington, which shouldn't have been necessary at
all.

Because there are many other hotels where friendly, courteous
service, prompt attention to guest concerns, and a clean,
comfortable room are expected and can be taken for granted, I
recommend that no one stay at any Days Inn hotel. Is fifteen
dollars and a free room worth the hassle I went through?

If this story makes you as mad as it made me, e-mail Days Inn, or
call their customer service number at 1-800-441-1618. Or better
yet, just stay away from them, and help me spread the word by
forwarding the original e-mail message that led you here.

If you think I'm just a disgruntled employee, even after reading
this far and looking at my vacation pictures, e-mail me with
specific questions. Thanks for reading!

Brooks Jones