Welcome to Sunshine Paradise
What better way is there to spend a family vacation than at an all-inclusive resort? Getting unlimited food, entertainment, and memorable moments. This would an ideal vacation spot for any family but it comes with a price. An expensive price. Usually, families save for these types of trips however that’s not always the case for some. A Corporate Guest Relations Coordinator, “Roxy” shared her story on Reddit. Names had been changed.
Roxy worked at an all-inclusive beachfront resort in Mexico, let’s call it “Sunshine Paradise Resort” that had a high customer satisfaction reputation with very few guest complaints. However one day, she received a rather strange email sent by a dissatisfied guest. The hotel staff tried their best to accommodate the guest for her supposedly bad stay until the guest’s true intentions were revealed.
Let’s just say, this guest got more than what she bargained for.
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The List Of Complaints Went On and On
As a Corporate Guest Relations Coordinator, Roxy handled any guest complaints. However because the hotel rarely had any guest complaints, she was surprised one day to find a complaint email waiting in her inbox. Not only was receiving the email strange but what the email consisted of was even stranger. The email was written by “Mrs. Johnson” about how terrible she and her family’s stay was at the resort. It was basically a day-to-day diary of Mrs. Johnson’s eight-night stay at Sunshine Paradise. Each day was thoroughly written, listing every possible complaint known to man. As if her words weren’t enough, she also included images as “proof.”
It was several pages long, and it looked something like this:
“Day 1: The shuttle driver was rude. We had to wait 30 minutes to check-in. The view is horrible, we can’t see the ocean. The sheets were dirty (picture attached). The A/C is so loud I can’t sleep. There is a crack in the sidewalk outside our room (picture attached). My dinner was cold and there wasn’t any salt/pepper on the table. The shower has no water pressure.”
“Day 2: We had breakfast at and they were out of pancakes. My daughter’s favorite cereal wasn’t available. There were loud children playing in the pool all day. There is a light out on the pathway (picture attached). I called the front desk to ask for more towels and no one answered. I think Housekeeping took money out of my purse. The chairs in the lobby are uncomfortable. One of the electrical plugs in my room doesn’t work.”
She even complained about how certain departments such as Maintenance, the Front Desk, and Housekeeping weren’t doing their jobs. The list went on and on. Now, some of the complaints seemed plausible, but really, who spends their entire vacation making a log of everything they think is wrong with a resort?
Roxy thought it was a bit suspicious. But pushing her opinions aside, she knew as the Corporate Guest Relations Coordinator, she needed to look further into Mrs. Johnson’s complaints before reaching out to her. So she made a call to the Front Office Manager to only find out her suspicions were coming to be true.
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No Complaints In The System
Roxy knew her Front Office Manager, “Ivan” would be able to track down more information on Mrs. Johnson’s claims. Such as who did she report her complaints to and were they able to resolve them for her? The hotel had a strict policy that everything had to be logged into the system, especially guest complaints. But to their surprise, there were no complaints logged into the system for her or any of her family members. This raised a couple of questions for Roxy and Ivan.
Rather than voice her complaints to the hotel staff, did Mrs. Johnson merely just joint them down in her little ‘complaint diary’ and went about her business? Or did a hotel staff make a mistake and not log them in?
With even more questions than before, Roxy decided to go through the email again to do her own investigation.
Many of the issues Mrs. Johnson listed in her email were very much “first world problems.” For example, she complained about the crack in the sidewalk outside her room, but when Roxy and her maintenance crew checked out the crack, it was only three inches long and flat on both sides. It was barely a crack, let alone a tripping hazard.
She complained her room didn’t have an ocean view, which the front desk confirmed she booked a courtyard view for her stay. While Roxy was at the front desk, she asked about Mrs. Johnson’s supposedly 30-minute wait to check-in.
Ivan recalled, “She showed up three hours early and the crew had to get the room ready.”
For the complaint on the dirty sheets, Roxy re-examined the picture attached in the email and saw those so-called dirty sheets were actually sheets with a tiny black spot in the corner. She showed her housekeeping crew in case other sheets were like Mrs. Johnson’s. None of them were aware of this issue.
One even commented, “It doesn’t look like dirt. It looks like someone marked a dot on the sheets with a pen or fine marker.”
Roxy had her hotel staff look into every complaint Mrs. Johnson stated in her diary. Her list said how terrible her stay was but in actuality, it seemed like her stay was more than fine. She was at their all-inclusive resort for eight nights with full access to a variety of restaurants, bars, pools, and much more on-site. And not an ounce of dissatisfaction reported until after her stay.
Roxy took a deep breath and decided it was time to call Mrs. Johnson. She needed to get to the bottom of all of this non-sense.
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Her Greediness Got The Best Of Her
When Mrs. Johnson answered the call, Roxy went through her introduction spiel. She was the Corporate Guest Relations Coordinator at Sunshine Paradise Resort and wanted to discuss the email. She then went on to apologize for Mrs. Johnson’s “bad” stay and emphasized that the hotel escalated the issue to an investigation for the greater good of other guests. To ensure history doesn’t repeat itself, Roxy brought up the fact there were no reports found in their system about any of her complaints like mentioned in her email.
Roxy asked, “Who did you speak with at the resort about these issues? Do you remember names or departments?”
Mrs. Johnson hesitated at first but admitted she didn’t tell anyone.
Roxy thought, “And why was that? What are you hiding lady?”
Instead of assuming the worst, she advised Mrs. Johnson next time she should voice her complaints to the hotel staff. In that way, the hotel could resolve her issues then and there. Mrs. Johnson agreed then paused.
Mrs. Johnson knew she was going to get something out of this call. And that she was right.
In the name of customer service, Roxy proceeded to say, “Sunshine Paradise would like an opportunity to make this right and offer you three free nights to come back in the future.”
Roxy was expecting excitement or at least gratitude on the other side of the phone call, but instead, she got disappointment. Mrs. Johnson didn’t accept the offer.
Her exact words were, “Nope, I want a full refund for my stay and nothing less.”
This was not a something hundred buck refund she wanted, this was a 6,500 buck refund. Mind you, this resort was an all-inclusive resort that had it all, and she and her family stayed there for eight whole nights and took full advantage of all its perks. The likelihood of her getting a refund was slim to none, but for the sake of great customer service, she told Mrs. Johnson she would need to review her request and get back to her on it.
Overall, the call was very cordial, but that didn’t last long when Roxy called Mrs. Johnson back to tell her the bad news that she wouldn’t get a full refund.
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Truth Revealed
Unfortunately, the hotel couldn’t give the full refund of her trip since she stayed the whole eight nights, but they were willing to add an extra night to the original offer. This meant she would have four free nights at the resort. Again, she did not accept the offer and demanded a full refund. Roxy reiterated she could not provide her that full refund because her claims did not align with the full refund policy.
They went back and forth that ended with Mrs. Johnson saying, “I want to speak with your manager!”
With those magic words, Roxy patched her manager on the call who told her the same thing. She then went back and forth with him. Eventually, she hung up.
The hotel hadn’t heard from her for a few days since then, so Roxy thought maybe she got it through her head she wasn’t getting a refund and backed off. Then she got a call.
Mrs. Johnson was on the other line and said, “What is the status of my refund?”
Roxy thought, “Um… How do you give someone a status on something that’s never going to happen?”
So Roxy explained again she would not get a refund, but the four free night offer still stands. Instead of taking the offer, she said she was going to contact corporate. Roxy rolled her eyes and explained to her again she was the Corporate Guest Relations Coordinator. She was Corporate.
Mrs. Johnson kept pushing for the full refund, and Roxy kept telling her no. The phone call felt like an eternity because it wasn’t going anywhere.
It got to the point that Roxy blatantly said, “I am not going to budge. It is either four free future nights or nothing, lady.”
Only after hours on the phone, Mrs. Johnson blatantly confessed, “I can’t afford to pay for this, I don’t have the money! I don’t know what to do… You have to help me!”
Was Roxy hearing this correctly? Was she admitting to the truth that Roxy had suspected the whole time?
Roxy questioned, “You… can’t afford to pay? Weren’t you planning on paying for your stay when you made the reservation? It’s not like we are charging you more than you agreed to …and we are still offering you free nights for your next visit.”
Mrs. Johnson’s whole demeanor had changed. She went from an angry Karen to this “Feel bad for me” Karen.
As she was crying, she said, “I didn’t think I would have to pay! I thought I would get my money back! I don’t know what I’m going to do. Please… You have to help me! I can’t pay for this. I’ve got kids. Please… You’ve got to do something to help me out… I need you to give me a refund. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I can’t get that money back. I can’t pay for this…”
Roxy couldn’t believe what she was hearing, even though she had her own suspicions. In all her years of working in customer service, she had never had a scammer come clean on their scam. Then expect help from the company they were trying to scam. This lady was delusional.
Since the scammer basically snitched on herself, Roxy thought she would give up on her whole scam. But she did the exact opposite.
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Scammer: 0, Hotel: 1
Roxy said in a professional tone, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can do.”
Mrs. Johnson at the point sounded like a broken record. She repeated, “I’ve got to get that money back, I’ve got to do something. You’ve got to help me out here. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t have the money. I can’t pay for this…”
Roxy responded, “Ma’am, you should have thought about that before you went on a vacation you couldn’t afford.”
Roxy had no remorse left in her body to feel any type of sympathy for Mrs. Johnson. She had wasted enough energy on her by the hotel staff investigating this whole incident and the hour-long phone calls. When reality hit again for Mrs. Johnson that she wasn’t going to get what she wanted now playing the victim. She resorted to screaming again.
Click. Roxy hung up on here. And that was not all she did to teach Mrs. Johnson a lesson.
Mrs. Johnson failed to realize all hotel calls were recorded at Sunshine Paradise. So just in case, this was not the end of her scam, Roxy sent the phone recordings of her admitting she was trying to scam the hotel to her corporate offices. She found out they had received a few hate letters of the incident, but since they had proof that it was a scam, they ignored her letters. The hotel also flagged Mrs. Johnson’s “frequent guest” membership and banned her to ever step foot on their resort properties. Since she declined the offer so many times, they also did not send her the free night certificates.
I am glad the hotel did not fall into her trap. She did not deserve one thing after what she tried to pull on them. Scamming is an unfortunate incident that happens to people and companies around the world. So this might not be the last scam this hotel will encounter, but hopefully, it is the last scam for Mrs. Johnson. Hopefully, Roxy and the hotel taught her a valuable lesson that she will not always get what she wants especially if she can’t afford it. Karma is real.
On a lighter note, I hope she realized that having a family vacation does not mean she has to book the most expensive vacation spot to have a good time. If she can’t afford thousands of bucks on a resort, then she needs to go on a vacation spot she could afford. It doesn’t matter where she and her kids spent their family vacation, but rather who they spent it with and how. It’s all about creating memorable moments when it comes to family vacations.
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