Journalistic scam is scuppered at Hotel TerraVina, with the help of a national magazine and some great detective work by the hotel’s extended team!

If there’s one thing guaranteed to make me really angry it is people who pretend to be what they are not and when they come to stay in the hotel and purport to be a journalist and then behave spectacularly badly, well that really makes me furious!

It has happened only rarely that we have had cause to suspect such fraudulent behaviour, but with the years of experience we have as hoteliers, we can usually smell a rat. On a recent Sunday evening, the team were subjected to scenes of the most obnoxious, rude and appalling behaviour. Unfortunately Gerard and I were not at the hotel as Gerard was in China attending as a guest speaker at the Asian Sommelier summit and I was at home revising for exams…. No not me, (I don’t do study, as I hate exams!) but I was helping Romané revise for his exams and so was not here on Sunday evening, to manage the situation or “protect” the team. However, Sophie, Laura, Ken and the team did handle it as well as they could and Suzi and I dealt with the rest the next morning.

Apparently, as the Sunday evening wore on and the person in question drank more and more, it became very obvious that she was not a journalist as her behaviour was so dreadful. I personally don’t know any journalists who proposition staff, (be they male or female) in exchange for their bill to be “wiped clean” and nor have I met any journalists who question the staff on their salaries, rant and rave at them, state they hate everything about the place and then ask them to be their friend and go out for a drink and at the same time continue to drink themselves silly whilst on an assignment- but the most breathtaking bit of all was that even when I challenged her the next morning, she was still trying to convince everyone that she was working for a very prestigious, very well known and popular up market magazine, even though I told her that I had been in contact with the editor and the NUJ (National Union of Journalists) and he/they knew nothing of her. Now if you are going to try such a scam at least do so cleverly; behave in a professional manner, know the name of the magazine’s editor and check out after your stay. In some places you might well get to have the bill comp’d off, or a discount or what ever it is you are trying to gain. This badly attempted scam was well and truly blown when the credit card was declined, she had no business card, didn’t know who the magazine’s editor was and so of course was unable to do anything more than beat a hasty retreat, once we had insisted on payment by another means.

The whole incident left the team bruised and dazed (it was much more unpleasant than I have written as it’s too distasteful to write about frankly) and I was left spitting feathers at their behaviour in our hotel, the stupidity of her and the cheek to try to pull off such a scam…… There is no excuse for abusive, aggressive behaviour and as such the team would have been quite in their rights to have thrown the imposters out, but inexperience and being too polite to challenge guests meant that they allowed them to stay – if Gerard and I had been here they would have been given short shift and been told to leave, but as it was they got to enjoy a night of Egyptian linen and a great bed. Of course I let the magazine know and the National Union of Journalists and the local Hoteliers Association, so hopefully they won’t be trying that particular scam again in a hurry! My blood pressure was raised skywards for the rest of the day and everyone kept clear of me as I was liable to explode at any moment- I’m still furious even as I write this at the audacity and sheer cheek of them- not to try the scam, but to pull it off so badly- I would have hoped for a more professional caliber of scammer frankly!

Nx

www.hotelterravina.co.uk

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