Best Western Smithfield Inn

I booked a stay at the Best Western Smithfield Inn, in NC, on August 29, 2014 thru September 1, 2014. During my stay, on Saturday August 30, during the evening, I was in the lobby area talking with my sister when the front desk clerk came over to us and asked "who used a credit card to pay for their room?" My sister said she used a credit card and the desk clerk anxiously asked my sister to participate "over-the-phone" in a survey and she would get a discount off her bill. My sister agreed to take part in the "over-the-phone" survey. She was told, by the man conducting the survey, that she would receive $160.00 off of her bill. Next, the same front desk clerk asked me did I pay with a credit card and I replied "yes." She asked me to participate in the same over-the-phone-survey. I agreed and I was told, by the same man on the other end of the phone, that I was going to receive $80.00 off of my bill for participating. My sister nor I ever received the discount. In the month of September, 2014, I was told by my bank that they discovered fraudulent activity of $1,200 on my checking account. I checked with my sister, and she said her bank paid on a fraudulent $1,400 from her checking account, in September, 2014. I revisited the same hotel on October 24, 2014 for a 3 day stay. While we were there, I informed the manager, [redacted], that my sister and I never received the discount for participating in the "phone-survey." Mr. [redacted] denied that "phone surveys" are conducted in his hotel. He said, "We do not do phone surveys here." He, first, refused to accept that it was done by one of his employees. However, He said he knew "exactly" who the clerk was but he would not disclose her name. He also said "she is no longer employed" at his hotel and that was the end of what he was willing to do to help us. Our credit card information was compromised under false pretense at this hotel. [redacted] appears to be covering up for his employee and is denying the validity of our complaint.Desired SettlementAn Investigation and a full refund for our entire three nights stay for our inconvenience and suffering. If this employee has moved on to another hotel, she may be working with a scam ring and is continuing to scam other customers. Someone needs to expose this scam activity. We notified Mr. [redacted] that scam activity may be taking place at his hotel against his customers and he did nothing, and treated us as if we were lying. Business Response The guests in question originally checked in to the hotel on August 28, 2014 and August 29, 2014. They checked out on September 1, 2014. At check out they made no mention of any discount that they were eligible to receive, nor mentioned the phone survey to the front desk staff.The guests called at 10:55 p.m. on October 17, 2014 and made no mention of any discounts that they were supposed to receive or the phone survey. They checked in to our hotel again on October 24, 2014. At check in the guests made no mention of any discount that they were eligible to receive, or failed to receive in the past. They made no mention of any phone survey to the front desk staff. [redacted] saw them twice that evening ask they were going to and returning from dinner and they made no mention of the discounts or survey to him either.At 10:25 a.m. on October 25, 2014 the guest mentioned the survey to [redacted], one of the front desk staff, while she was working in the breakfast area. Three of the ladies asked [redacted] if they regularly conducted phone surveys at the hotel. [redacted] said that they did not conduct phone surveys because Best Western conducts all surveys online. The ladies continued to say that this property did in fact conduct phone surveys and explained that they were asked to participate in one the last time that they were here. They said that the desk clerk, who they could not name nor describe at the time, came out from behind the desk to ask them to participate in a phone survey. The ladies said that each of the three of them participated in the phone survey and gave their credit card numbers over the phone to the person conducting the survey, and that the person conducting the survey said that two of them would get a discount on their bill. [redacted] continued to tell them that at no point in the 7 years that she has worked here has the hotel ever done surveys over the phone, and especially not at the desk or involving credit card numbers. They said that they wanted to talk to the manager about the situation and she informed them that he would be in some time the following day. Later that evening the ladies had a very similar conversation with [redacted], another desk clerk. She also informed them that the hotel does not conduct phone surveys.The next morning the ladies spoke with [redacted]. [redacted] also said that the hotel never conducts phone surveys and that all surveys for this property would go through Best Western and would be online. The ladies then let [redacted] know about the fraudulent activity on their credit cards following the survey. [redacted] explained that phone surveys have never been conducted here. They mentioned the discount but never stated the discount amount. The ladies still could not identify the desk clerk that initiated the phone surveys with them. [redacted] said we would look back through the video surveillance log to see if he could see proof of the incident. He attempted to look back through the video log, but our new security system only holds around 10 days worth of footage. He then went back through the old schedules and found out which desk clerk was working at the date and time in question. She no longer works at this property because she moved back home and not for any misconduct, so he contacted her and asked about the survey and she had no idea about what he was talking about. She said that at no point during the time she worked here did she ever ask a guest to conduct a survey over the phone or any kind of survey. [redacted] went out to the parking lot and let the ladies know that he was not able to pull up the old video footage.Sincerely,[redacted]Consumer Response The employee that misrepresented this Best Western hotel by asking us to participate in a bogus phone survey is lying when she says that she did not have us take the phone survey. We do not even know if she is the correct employee that requested us to take the phone survey. And the hotel manager is unwilling to make that determination because, conveniently his surveillance tapes do not go back past 30 days. Also, if this person is in fact the employee that asked us to take the survey, it doesn't surprise me that she denied asking us to take the phone survey. Do you really think she is going to admit that she is stealing for the hotel and committing fraud against its hotel guests? It seems very convenient that she no longer works at this hotel. Unfortunately, the Best Western manager does not value its customers. And does not care about offering its customers high quality service. He does not commit himself to investigating this criminal activity that's going on in his hotel by one of his employees against his customers. He doesn't commit to the customer service philosophy that "the customer is always right." The Revdex.com will began hearing from other customers who have experienced being asked to take a phone survey from this same employee. It is unbelievable why the manager feels compelled to defend fraudulent activity that is taking place in his hotel and is disregarding a customers complaint. He is not making any attempt to launch a complete investigation to get to the bottom of this situation. This is poor management on behalf of the hotel manager and poor business practices overall. I will NEVER stay at this hotel again or any other Best Western hotel because of this poor level of management. You can not protect your guests.Final Business Response The hotel stands behind its decisions. This matter was looked into but nothing was found to support the claims made.