Candlewood Suites

My party of 4, which consisted of my asthmatic grandmother, stayed at Candlewood Suites in New Bern,N.C. I agreed to a $25 hold on my card as a standard room credit and my party & myself was well aware of the $125 smoking penalty. Upon check out- the front desk clerk stated there were no problems and the $25 credit hold will be released in 3-5 business days. I checked my account later that afternoon and found there was a $125 hold against my acct. When I called to inquire about the charge, the very rude front desk clerk stated she was advised by the first shift manager that the room "smelled like smoke" and "there were cigarette butts left in ashtrays and all around the room" she stated she personally went to the room to take pictures and she smelled the smoke. I stated that was impossible. no one smoked in the room and explained my grandmother cannot be around smoke, nor can she smell smoke due to her asthma. Then questioned, if this is a smoke free facility- how can there be ashtrays in the room? She quickly changed her statement and then stated the maid found cigarettes all over the room. (lie#2- we cleaned up after ourselves- we did not leave a mess). I asked for the pictures and she stated they were for management to see & I could not see them. She then abruptly transferred me to a V/M. After an hour of not having my call returned, I called back to speak to a manager & was told that there wasn't a mngr on staff on Sun & would not be until Mon (lie#3). I also checked other reviews on this establishment & found similar, if not the same, complaints about being falsely accused of smoking and paying penalty charges. On Monday, I s/w the manager of the establishment. Again, I explained my grandmother's medical condition and explained no one smoked in the room. I had him send the pictures that the front desk clerk claimed she had taken. The picture was of a broken, not smoked/lit, cigarette on the floor. when I asked if the cigarette was lit- he stated he wasn't sure, but would ask the maid.Product_Or_Service: king suite room [redacted]Desired SettlementThe manager offered to refund half of the $125 smoking penalty. However, I want a full refund. It's not a coincidence that there were other reviews with similar and same instances whereas penalty charges and false accusations of smoking in the room happened. not sure if this is some type of embezzlement scam, but it's not fair what this establishment is doing to their patrons.Business Response We are 100% Nonsmoking facility, to respect all our patrons we do not allow smoking in our rooms. There is a penalty if it occurs. We have upgraded this guest with One King bedroom suite. In spite of being told and signed the registration form; Guest happened to smoke in the room with 2 other friends which hotel was not aware of !!As a one-time courtesy hotel refunded part of it.

Our hotel room was not cleaned properly and was not starelized. After driving for 13 hours on 11/20/14,we stopped at this hotel and got a room. after unloading all of our luggage including luggage for our baby we discovered that the room smelled of smoke, the pillow had makeup stains on it and sheets were dirty we also discovered a lot of pubic hairs in the bathtub. My wife called the front desk and they offered to move us to another room. We did not feel confident in the cleaning staff at that point so we had to leave. We had to stay at a[redacted] inn express in [redacted]. Desired SettlementI would like to have our hotel room at the holiday in paid for since this was a huge inconvenience for our family. [redacted].Memphis, TN 38132

Review: Was not happy what they did to me about my card payment and was not happy with that situatiom was waitimg 2 and half and they should give me a discount was not happy my card was fine and didnt like there attitude and they should give me a discountDesired Settlement: they should at least give me a discount

Business

Response:

August 22, 2013

Dear **. [redacted],

I am writing this letter in response to correspondence we received regarding a problem with one of our guests. I would like to notify you of what happened the day in question:

The guest (registered as [redacted], not [redacted]) came to the front desk to check-out. When the assistant manager, :[redacted] attempted to charge the credit card, the card declined. I then attempted to charge the card and it declined again. I asked the guest to please contact his bank so that we could see if there were any authorizations that needed to be released so that we could charge the card. He told us he knows the money is there. I told him unfortunately because the card was declining we needed the bank to contact us. He called his bank and the person from the bank told [redacted] that there were no holds/authorizations and that the charges should go through. We tried again, and again the card declined. We explained to the guest that we needed the bill paid before he left. I asked him if he had any other method of payment and he said no. The guest again tried to contact his bank, and the bank again told us the money was there. We tried again to process the payment and the card declined. The guest waited in our lobby for quite some time, but we could not have him leave with an open balance ($482.81). Eventually after about 2 hours of waiting he finally went and got the cash (I don't know why he did not do this earlier when I asked him for an alternate form of payment) and paid the bill in full. Our staff handled everything exactly as they should have. If a guest leaves without paying we contact the police as this is theft of services. I wanted to avoid taking this action which is why we kept trying to work with him. Had there been a problem on our end with processing the card I would consider some type of reimbursement but this was strictly a problem with him not having enough money on his debit card for us to take payment. If you need further information you can contact me at ###-###-####.