hellohello123

17 hours ago, kentrot said:

Yes it is a common practice.

But in this case i believe I read that the amount charged was 350 Baht .

Pretty steep "corkage" for washing 2 glasses !

I believe I read that they were drinking from an open bottle of Gin that they started drinking at the beach.

you are completely missing the point,

as a former hospitliaty venue owner (we didnt allow any outside drinks in because it wasnt asked often , plus its not really in our culture to bring)

the corkage doesnt just cover the cost of providing 2 glasses and water and soap, its the opportunity cost of what they would have or could have spent purchasing from your venue,

a fair corkage fee would be for example the $40 bottle of whatever, 23 shots per bottle, thats $2 each, sells for $8 at the venue, is $6 profit, x 23 = $132 per bottle

obviously very few people are going to go for that so the venue could adjust it to suit their goals

17 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Wrong. He is a tourist that will be quickly forgotten. This extremely tone deaf, incompetent and arrogant administration, will have egg on their faces for a long time, over this foolishness and very poorly timed pettiness. And the hotel will lose an enormous amount of business over this lack of goodwill. As far as the local franchisees go (the cops), their reputation could not be any worse, so no real loss there.

 

Horrible judgment all the way around. 

but will the hotel/tourist board ever realise this?

or will they care?

17 hours ago, Johnnyy said:

Sometimes in life when you are not happy you just have to suck it up and move on. You can’t beat the system. I bet he wished he had done that now. 

agree, however if I receive that bad service, I will make sure that I write a review or let others know to the best of my ability,

I would never take a bottle of alcohol to a bar/restaurant who's primary income is alcohol

years ago, me and a mate were checking into a 5 star hotel, we met a third friend already in a different hotel at the lobby,

the hotel started to insinuate the max room capacity was 2 ppl, and that we would be charged extra for him to stay,

luckily a little insistence convinced them he wasnt staying , however if we did get charged, I would have written a bad review

19 hours ago, Silencer said:

I think THAT is the point, in THAILAND, using the term treated like "modern-day slavery", worked like "slaves", IS treated differently from the West. Thousands of business review on a website like Glassdoor that call companies, managers, CEO's "slave master's", "Hitler", and other damaging names but the reviews remain because it is seen as an expression of opinion. In Thailand, opinions can get you sent to jail.

I wonder if any of this would have happened, had his review said something along the lines of "the manager treated their staff like scum", because its an opinion and nothing defamatory, and could be completely true

19 hours ago, poohy said:

Faced with jail, I too would lie through my teeth and apologize

 

Western media will see through this poor PR apology  stunt!

Neither Thailand the hotel or the bloke are winners here 

imagine the difference in outcome had hte guy been living outside of thailand or about to leave

he would never apologise or he would apologise, get it sorted, and then later recant and say he was pressured/threatened,

double whammy for the hotel had this happenned

but im sure the hotel wouldnt have thought that far ahead

19 hours ago, aroiaroi said:

Amazing Thailand, enjoy your stay or go to jail.

 

The hotel owner/management, in their breathtaking stupidity, has written, by itself, on the international stage, the worst 1 star review possible.

It's like using a shotgun to kill a mosquito biting your face.

 

well, as long as the hotel owner has saved face,

thats the most important thing to them isnt it?

like the case of those 3x17yr olds who killed an old expat in pattaya after they were sitting on his bike and hte old guy told them to get off, so they killed him, and asked why they killed him, "cos I/we lost face"

full respect to the 3 of them if they are sitting in jail and saying it was worth it, as they saved face

7 hours ago, madmen said:

Oh yeah right marry your way out of trouble. That's the dummest thing I heard. He will end up running back to the UK eventually just to get away..????????????

Well so many thai ladies marry their way into a better life (or perceived better life)

Should work both ways

11 minutes ago, Xonax said:

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/go-berserk

I know what berserk means, I've always known it to be a word you only say in conversation and never in a written professional form

Is the author of the article thai or foreign?

I've never seen the word "beserk" used in a newspaper article

I wonder whether the hotel found out before they filed charges that he was a resident of thailand and not a tourist,

I would have thought most people who stay in resorts of a country are tourists who will stay for a week or two in the country and fly out and may only come back once in a lifetime

so filing charges against a overseas resident would be pointless

1 hour ago, moe666 said:

The customer is not always right, a friend ran a guest houe in CM. He had a guest complain on trip advisor that he had no parking, which is stated in the guest house advertisement. The kicker was the fact the complainer didn't have a car but was complaining about no parking. They are every where.

you know, its just how the world is and probably has been for thousands of years, now that social media is here, its easier to have a voice, anyone business owner that thinks this wont happen or doesnt know how to handle it is either inexperienced or naive

I worked at a fine dining establishment ages ago, and we served a customer oysters kilpatrcik, and he complained and he kept on repeating that he owns restaurants around the world, and that oysters kilpatrick dont have worscestershire sauce in it,

rather than take him to court and put him in jail, we took it off the bill, and offered him something else

So according to thai mentality,

Does mediation = still losing face?

If they retract the charges, wouldn't that be the ultimate loss of face?

42 minutes ago, British Bulldog said:

Ha ! Went to a Restaurant in Vientiane once, I took a bottle of Champagne that a friend had bought me for my birthday ... the restaurant said, I'm sorry there is a corkage fee equivalent to $12 ... I said, OK how much for a bottle of this Champagne here .... they went off, came back and said; Sorry Sir, we don't sell that brand ... so I said OK, I can drink mine here ... no surcharge ... took a bit of back and forth, but they eventually agreed ... after I'd near on finished the bottle ...

What on earth?

So just becuase they don't stock the drink you brought,  you are entitled to drink it without surcharge??

No wonder thais think farangs  are idiots

Is your first name Wesley by any chance?

5 hours ago, finnsk said:

Rule nr 1 : Tourism industry is a service industry, where you must work with the slogan that the clients is always right (nearly)

 

Rule nr 2 : All hotels and restaurants in the world had to live with tripadvisor and other platforms like this, nobody is talking about it is the truth, but everybody can write what they like on these platforms. Thats 2020 now, everybody must learn to deal with the internet.

 

Rule nr 3 : As a manager of a tourism service you must never let a conflict grow big, you must be ready to lose face and compensate the client even it is not fair and do it before the conflict is getting to big.

 

If the hotel/restaurant manager had acted after these simple rules, there would never being a case like this.

 

This would normaly only have being a case between the hotel and the client all over the world.

 

It is unthinkable what is going on now, they take a tourist, arrest him, put him to jail maybe up to more than 2 years, for a simple normal restaurant conflict. Now it is on the headlines on all the mainmedia around the world, now tourist worldwide can/will get scared to visit Thailand.

 

Is this a good deal for Thailand ?

 

The loser is Thailand, I wish all the best for Thailand, in many ways it is fantastic place, but there is some problems with some of the staff................

Rule number 3: totally agree!!

As a hospitality industry person, this rule is the biggest difference between one who is not suited vs one that has empathy and can see beyond ego and emotion

a lot of people saying the americans actions were vindicitve, which  I agree

years ago, I stayed in a selfrated 5 star hotel, was probably 4 star at best,

checking out of hotel trying to pay the bill via credit card, got told we accept cash only, I told the lady I didnt have any cash,

and she screamed at me, snatched my card and processed it

I wrote a negative review on it, on trip advisor, google and sent an email to their general enquires line,

I guess I was technically I was breaking the law too!

1 hour ago, JensenZ said:

Symptoms can arrive as soon as 30 minutes in some cases.

highly highly unlikely,

for those that claim they get sick within 30 mins are usually exaggerating, or its psychological

13 hours ago, Mick501 said:

They can see the review before it is published and ask the author to remove or amend it.  The author can then decide.

 

as a frequent user and reviewer on TripAdvisor, you always have to take 1 and 5 star reviews with a grain of salt.  Most 1 star reviews are down to a single bad experience and in many cases offer little or no useful information (as in this case).  Also need to look at the amount of reviews by the author.  In this case, it is his first review, which also raises alarm bells.

 

there is something extremely unusual about his review.  "Likes" are a much more rare commodity on TripAdvior than on this site.   Many very good reviewer have done hundreds of reviews and have maybe 50 likes.  His singular obvious rant received 141.  Maybe that is support for him for people who think the hotel has done the wrong thing.

 

in the case of this hotel, if I was interested I would have ignored his review and may well have stayed there in the future.  In my view, putting someone in prison, or threatening to do so, should not be supported.  The guy might well be a pain in the ass, but doesn't deserve what he is going through now.

 

 

as someone who has too much time on his hands and loves reading reviews of restaurants/movies/venues etc, and hospitality career/business

you can usually tell when a review is fake or too biased

that one person who goes to a restaurant, finds a hair, then finds a fly, then gets a grumpy waitress, then a bad attitude manager, then his dessert doesnt turn up, then has to wait 20 mins for the bill, you know that most of it is going to be fake,

I usually look at the number of positives vs negatives, and the content of the negatvies, if their one and only review was this one etc.

hospitality is very subjective so one person definition of too slow, too salty, bad attitude, too expensive

I especially get chuckles out of those that scream bloody murder with reviews like "I got food poisoned by this venue, I was sick within 15 mins of my first bite of the steak, it was definitely the steak, this place should be shut down"

for the record food poisoning takes anything between 8-48 hours for symptons to show, unless the food is laced with cyanide

If I read this Americans review, I personally wouldnt put too much weight on it, as the other reviews are overwhelmingly positive,  BYO alcohol and getting charged would be expected or wouldnt be allowed in the first place.  The only thing that I would be wary of is the attitude of the managers

2 hours ago, Susco said:

Do you know which room he had, as they have rooms as high as 7600 Baht per night, booked online

 

Maybe he didn't want to go for the cheapest, unlike you?

I take the fact that they spent 6000 baht with a grain of salt,

Im guilty of it too, if the hotel cost 5900 baht, I will round off to 6000 baht,

and you know the saying of chinese whispers........

the only thing I deduce from 6000 per night is that its not a $10 usd per night cheap 1 star hotel and that its 5 star

14 hours ago, LomSak27 said:

The yank may indeed be entitled but obviously the resort owners are entitled, privileged, ----s.

 

He wrote a review on trip advisor, a popular but essentially flaky online travel source. He then ends up with a 2 year jail sentence. Amazing Thailand.    

 

Methinks this is not going to help jump start tourism to Thailand.

 

and this is the one of the prime differences between many 3rd world and first world countries,

3rd world seem to lack the common sense and put a priority on face to be able to comprehend that "win the battle but not the war" when it comes to service

whether its a 50/50, 25/75, 75/25, 90/10, 10/90 fault of whoever, you run a business, you are going to get difficult customers,

how you handle disputes shows a lot about the business/staff involved

years ago in central pattaya, I left a scathing review on a hotel,

TLDR story,

checkin: no we cant find your booking on our system

me: here is the booking on my phone

hotel: no we need a printed copy, it will cost you 10 baht per page to print it out, or come back in an hour

comeback in 3 hours, still cant find the booking

comeback 2 hours later, still cant find, I make a fuss and they give me my room

upon checkout:
hotel: your roomservice/restaurant bill is XXX Baht,

me: here is my amex

hotel after trying a few times and it was coming up as an error, sorry your card isnt working,

me: well the card is working because I used it to pay for this hotel plus I used it today

hotel  keeps on trying,

another guest beside me also trying to pay his bill via amex but having issues

hotel: its not the hotels problem, there is something wrong with your card

me: no, then why is the guy next to me having the same problem?

hotel: well you cant leave until you pay it

me: well I have a  flight to catch in a few hours, so you had better sort it out

hotel: you'll have to cancel your flight

me: are you going to pay for a new flight for me?

hotel: silence

thankfully the card worked after its 10th try

reading this americans story, I guess I could have been jailed for my review too!

I'm still asking myself, 

So once tourism starts increasing does that mean these areas or any tourist Meccas  full of scams towards tourists,

Will the number of scams decrease? Or will it increase due to slim pickings?