Complaint Review: Hampton Inn/Hilton - Nationwide

Declaration / Overview of events

On Monday 29^th of September 2014, the two  undersigned  arrived at Washington Dulles Airport. Both travelled from Brussels (Belgium) with flight UA 951 in order to visit the annual MAX show held in Monroeville.  The time of arrival at Dulles Airport was approximately 14:30 hrs. local-time. Immediately upon arrival both declared their imported cash with the US Customs and Excise as always. Both appropriately filled-in the therefore intended FINCEN-forms in order to certify that a large amount of cash was brought into the USA. The made declarations were as follows:

X: 20.000 USD (in 100 USD bills) PLUS 2500 Euro all in notes of 50 Euro (which latter amount is the equivalent of approx. 3200 USD) so in total: 23.200 Euro;

X: 20.800 USD (in 100 USD bills PLUS 4000 Euro all in notes of 500 Euro (which latter amount is the equivalent of approx. 5080 USD) so in total: 25.880 Euro.

This is naturally possibly to be checked by the appropriate authorities.

Taken into account that the MAX show started on Wednesday, 1^st of October, both decided to spent one day in order to visit Washington-DC and therefore both reserved a room in the following hotel in the vicinity of the Washington-DC area. The name of the hotel is:

Hampton Inn - Silver Spring / 8728-A Colesville Road / Silver Spring / MD 20910 / Tel: (301) 588-5887

This hotel-reservation was especially due to the fact that they mentioned under options: ‘safe available’

Both arrived at the hotel at approx. 17:00 hrs. and checked in and went to their rooms. After checking the room it appeared that NO safe was available in the room. Hereupon both asked in the lobby about this and were given the explanation that another safety-deposit option was given by the hotel: valuables could be stored in a safety-deposit box behind the hotel-counter, which could only be opened with a unique key given to the user only. Both decided to use this rendered option and decided to use this given hotel-option and store the abovementioned cash-amounts plus both their Dutch passports in the described safety-deposit locker. We packed the cash and passports in a black-coloured etui (as used to store an I-Pad) so that it would be impossible to see it contents) This action took place approximately at 17:30 hrs.

Both were helped by an employee of the hotel (of which we later learned was called ‘Williams’ or alike) who specifically mentioned that the key was the ONLY available example and that it should be treated with great caution: loss of the key would result into not be able to open the safe and would result in having to open the safe with a drill something that would cost 75 USD or alike). This explanation was of course taken as a fact. The hotel employee ‘William Abbott’ was an approximately 35 years old black male.  ‘Williams’ provided us with a metal-casing wherein we stored the a.m. black-coloured etui with cash and passports. We thought that ‘Abbott’ did not see what was within the casing: he went into the small room behind the counter and apparently stored the casing and provided us with an unique key (numbered: ‘ 41’ ). The employee provided us with a small document whereon the room-number (609) date, name (‘ Clements’ ) was to be filled-in. This paper was appropriately signed.

On Wednesday, 1^st October, 2014 at approximately 7:30 hrs., X  andX  were intending to check-out and went to the hotel-lobby: when providing the employee (a girl) with the key numbered ‘ 41’ ) she went behind the lobby and apparently opened the safety-locker and providedX and X with the iron-casing. Upon opening it proved EMPTY. All these actions (including the storing and explanation by ‘ William Abott’  on 29^th September) were appropriately video-taped by the hotel as was later explained to us.

Immediately after noticing that the casing was empty we urged the hotel manager to come to the lobby and explain us ‘ how this could happen’. Immediately he checked all other casings with a negative result. After this we decided to involve the local police. About half an hour later the local police arrived (with 4 staff-members  initially) and took notice of the above-described situation. Both CLEMENTS and DECOCQ and the hotel-staff present were appropriately interviewed of which a complaint-form (having the incident-number: ‘ 140479913’ ) was compiled. This form was taken by the Officer named KANG (badge-number: ‘2877’ - contact-nr. ‘ (240) 773 6800’).

Having taken note of the situation and its severeness the local police decided to involve also two detectives who arrived later at the crime-scene. Both interviewed also the staff as well as both CLEMENTS and DECOCQ in a more in-depth manner and investigated thoroughly the crime-scene.. The detectives stated that what X and X declared ‘ was clearly to be seen at the seized video-taping of the course of events’ .

During the police investigation the Hotel Complex Assistant General Manager (named: ‘Mr. Paul LEE - tel. (301) 830 9010’) was present in order to give assistance.

During the presence of the police-officers the Hotel Complex Manager arrived also at the scene. This person (named: ‘Mr. Jim SALVO - tel. (301) 563 3828 - Mob. (610) 800 3748) took also note of the course of events and expressed that the insurance of the hotel would be possibly liable to cover the loss).

The fact remains that in the opinion of both victims the hotel is fully responsible for this event. Not only did they NOT properly care for the belongings of their guests but also handled an improper security to overcome this situation. Both victims do have not only lost a huge amount of money and have been stolen of their identity documents, but they have also been taken the opportunity to create some income during the a.m. MAX-show.

On 2 October 2014, both X  and X were informed by e-mail that the Hilton Group had apparently informed their insurance-company about the course of events that took place in one of their hotels. They had informed a company named: Sedgwick Claims Management Services Inc. to ‘further investigate the case’. Apparently did this company gave  the case a unique case-number, to be referred to as: Hampton Inn Claim 30142853416-0001. Both CLEMENTS and DECOCQ were informed by e-mail that the person responsible at Sedgwick would be a person named: Crystal McKINNEY - Claims Examiner II (Tel: 972-906-8506 - Fax: 972-906-868 - E-mail: C[email protected]

The above-mentioned Mrs. McKINNEY sent us several e-mails (resp. on 6 and/or 8 October 2014) in which she asked to be provided with all possible proof of having been bringing the stolen ammounts of cash into the US: we informed her that this was easily to be checked by asking for copies of our FinCen forms as filled-in by us at the US-Customs when entering the US on 29 September 2014. We also advised her to get in touch with the leading investigative-officer. Apparently was this done because on 17 October 2014 we were informed by mail that ‘she meanwhile had got hold of these forms’. Mrs. McKINNEY also informed us ‘that she apologized for the length of time that the investigation was taken. In general an investigation had to be completed in 30 days. However she was pending the final investigation-report from the Silver Springs Police’. We have not heard from her since.We started to get back in touch with both Hilton and Sedgwick just before Christmas. Both paries not being very helpfull at all. Concluding finally in februari that Hilton could offer an compensation of 300USD each following the Matyland Inn Keepers Code Of Conduct. A solution given all the evidence not satisfactory at all. In addition we feel very much let down by a reputable firm as Hilton to threat us like this.