to think hotels shouldn't invoice you for the toiletries?

[frangipani13]

Booked a weekend away for Dsis and DN for the former's birthday treat. DN must've got a bit carried away and took the mini shower gel/moisturiser home with her. B and B have left me a voice mail and sent an invoice for £44 quoting "stolen items" and threatening legal action if the invoice is unpaid. I've stayed in many many places of varying quality and have never experienced this. Has anyone else? AIBU to think this is a bit much?

Oh gosh I've done this. Stayed in a very very posh hotel and there was a bottle of Hermes cologne and a big bottle of some posh shower gel. I totally assumed it was a freebie for guests . They were unopened on the bed.

I wouldn't allow you to post them back, I'd ask for the money. What on earth possessed her to take them.

Although I don't like the thought of multiple use bottles in hotels anyway. Too much contamination potential.

I bring my own stuff as I hate those mini bottles and refuse to use big ones into which something has been decanted. Ewww.

She's thirteen. Yes, she's old enough to know better but it's hardly crime of the century. I'm sure she won't go on to be the next face on Crimewatch.

I stayed in what looked like a really nice boutique hotel in Edinburgh for work (The Bonham) and thought on the trip up that if it was as nice as my male colleague said, then it might be a nice place to hold our wedding reception as we fancied getting married in Edinburgh.

Til I discovered that they provided gigantic, screwed to the wall bottles of communal White Company shower gel and made you call their reception for toiletries if you needed anything more exotic than a tissue. I genuinely made my decision to discount them as a wedding venue on their toiletry provision as its such a minging, stingy thing to do.

Op - your niece wasn't exactly in the right but the b&b owner is being a bit unreasonable also!

I think people have either forgotten that it was a child who took them, or maybe got diverted into a theoretical debate.

If the latter then I agree, but not for a young teenager. They make all sorts of silly decisions at that age and don't have the common sense experience and being a grown up generally instills. She did a silly thing and I would imagine had her own erroneous train of thought about it, and is now rectifying her mistake. Hotel not out of pocket, young adolescent learns a lesson, so all is well with the world.

For adults, it's rather different im afraid and I do think there is a lot of thieving and pocketing of anything left in public places or '3rd places' which aren't home but aren't totally public either, like cafes, aeroplanes, airport lounges, and hotels.

But far from clapping them all in irons, I'd use more positive ways of directing people's behaviour, it works better and is more appropriate for the transactional relational a business and customer have, assuming the business wants to give a positive experience which leaves customers happy and themselves not out of pocket. Like a polite note, or a set of guidelines for the hotel stay, or doing a housekeeping check before check out as many hotels do already.

I used to travel a lot for work and stayed in hotels all over the world, from basic to super premium, and it generally works better to set the tone for the way you want people to behave, rather than leave it up to people's consciences and experience of travel / hospitality. If they show they expect good behaviour off guests by treating guests well and setting a positive and transparent tone, that's what you get (mostly!).

The only hotel I've ever been to which treated the guests like potential criminals was one in Ibiza which tbh had a point - it was on the club circuit & had a list of fees for such damage as 'mattress in the swimming pool', 'urinating in the corridors'. Bloody hell!

Bit shocked at the tone of some poster's here, especially considering the
thief in question is a 13 year old girl. We are talking about some mingng hotel products, hardly think this little girl is headed for a life of wickedness and crime!

I worked as a bilingual staff associate in a lovely hotel in Washington, D.C. The owner's would have been mortified to cause a customer such consternation.

CactusAnnie, it all depends on how many sausages you eat, it's a very complex equation.

But the 13 year old child was with an adult. Who would presumably have noticed the missing shampoo, etc when she went to use the facilities? I agree its silly behaviour on the part of the 13 year old but I don't think its unreasonable to expect a 13 year old not to take things that don't belong to them. Its actually quite an aware thing to do - possibly picking up on attitudes of the parent?

I'm shocked at some of the attitudes on here too - "its the hotel's fault for not preventing it", "nothing wrong with stealing if its a 13 year old" etc - clearly some very dishonest people around with a vague attitude towards other peoples' belongings.

I work for an airline. On one flight in business class someone stole the bottles of Moulton Brown soap and hand cream from the toilets. When we replaced them they stole the refill bottles too, meaning the passengers for the rest of the flight and the return (USA) journey didn't have any nice toiletries and had to have the economy stuff. It's selfish and it's stealing.

I hope at the very least you did a public announcement telling people why they had the economy stuff and asking the person responsible to replace it?

Anyone else think that all hotels should stick with having the really teeny minitures? Would save a lot of hassle...

Can some people really not see the distinction between a boutique hotel and a B&B in handling issues like this?

Perhaps the only time you recognise thieving will be when it happens to you? What a horrible example to set to any children.

I don't get all this talk about 'theft'. It's not theft if it's a genuine misunderstanding, which it sounds like it probably was. Sounds like she thought it was included in the room rate, which is not an unreasonable assumption to make at a hotel. Accusing someone of theft is a serious matter.

Just think that, on the whole, it could have been dealt with less sniffily by the hotel.

I really don't get all this hysteria about "bacteria ridden products" or that it is, in some way, minging for larger bottles of products to be used. Do you all have single-use miniature bottles of shampoo and shower gel in your bathrooms at home? I doubt it somehow.

Also, shouldn't common sense tell you that miniatures are fine to take but larger containers are clearly meant to be left behind? It shouldn't be necessary for hotels and guesthouses to have to spell it out! And yes, it is stealing to help yourself to something that clearly isn't yours to take home.

The test for dishonesty in relation to theft is:

A person’s appropriation of property belonging to another is not to be regarded as dishonest—

(a) if he appropriates the property in the belief that he has in law the right to deprive the other of it, on behalf of himself or of a third person; or
(b) if he appropriates the property in the belief that he would have the other’s consent if the other knew of the appropriation and the circumstances of it; or
(c) (except where the property came to him as trustee or personal representative) if he appropriates the property in the belief that the person to whom the property belongs cannot be discovered by taking reasonable steps.

Belief has to be reasonable. Whether this is theft will depend on whether it is reasonable to assume that a large bottle of expensive shampoo is there for the taking. I would say the answer is clearly not.

The situation is very analogous to the provision of salt etc in restaurants. If it's in a sachet, the sachets are there for reasonable use by diners - though there is a clear implication that they can only take what they reasonably need for their meal. But no-one seriously thinks that the fact that restaurants put salt cellars on the table means that they can pocket them, do they?

I agree with Summerisle about the hygiene issue. Do all the people who think this is dreadful refuse to use soap dispensers in public loos?

Well, the Fagin-family could have asked the B&B owner to remove all doubt...

Useful information, Icimoi.

I think that's a red herring really, grasping for reasons why this particular theft/misappropriation/five-finger discount was of no consequence...

Thanks for the legal lesson ici But the concept of reasonableness is complex and in this case certainly not 'clear'.

Anyway, legalese aside, the hotel's response was OTT.

It might come across as OTT but the single instance that the OP has been contacted about is almost certainly the tip of the thieving iceberg.

I have a friend who runs a small hotel. She has, almost without exception, had very pleasant people staying. What absolutely baffles her is how many of them take everything that isn't nailed down although in one case, someone did unscrew the bracket that fixes the naice, expensive bathroom products to the shower tiles.

It might seem grasping to invoice a guest for £44 but actually, this casual thieving gets remarkably expensive. So in the end, even reasonable hoteliers have probably had enough.

I never use hotel toiletries as I have miniatures of my normal products in my travel kit. I certainly wouldn't use any big bottles provided by the hotel as you really don't know what's in them and as other PPs have pointed out, people do some minging things in hotels.

Handwash in public toilets isn't such a problem as its less likely to be tampered with.

I think the B&B in question has been very heavy handed in how they've dealt with it.

Maybe the £44 was to pay for a security bracket that the OP's sister and niece have demonstrated is necessary.

'But no-one seriously thinks that the fact that restaurants put salt cellars on the table means that they can pocket them, do they?'

Sadly, people do. I've been out to dine with several such folk and pulled them up on taking 'cute' salt and pepper shakers, linens, tableware, etc.

Look at the people on here like the poster who decanted shampoo into her personal bottle because she and her husband didn't use their 'fair share'.