You can't imagine what a hectic weekend I have had! I was in a wedding in Birmingham, where everything was based out of the Sheraton hotel, a large hotel downtown. In addition to all the chaotic wedding mishaps -- bride got sick, we were terribly late to the church, groomsman passed out at the altar, cell phone went off during vows -- my husband's truck broke down (he did not attend the wedding with me) as he was travelling to my mother-in-law's home to pick up our son, whom she'd been babysitting. He was picking him up early because he was sick. So far, not such a great weekend...but it got even worse!

Because my son was sick, I decided to return home early, planning to leave Birmingham Saturday night after the reception instead of staying overnight and leaving Sunday. During the day Saturday, I realized that two of the bridesmaids wree planning to stay in the hospitality suite that night, where the wedding party had been congregating each night into the wee hours, and where there was only a murphy bed. I offered to let them stay in my hotel room that night since the room was already paid for and I was leaving early.

We moved their belongings up to my room mid-day Saturday. Housekeeping came and went during the day, which we noticed as we made a couple of trips back to the room to get things we had forgotten. We were in a room with a balcony that overlooked an atrium, where you could see every door in the huge hotel on every floor (and they could see you if the curtains were open). It was the room farthest from both the elevator and service elevator, and though it was near a stairwell, it was on the highest floor (17) of the hotel.

That night, when I returned to the room to change clothes and hit the road, I quickly changed and gathered up my belongings and left...didn't even wait for a bellman, just grabbed my stuff and shot out of there. I was the only one with a key, so I took the key (carting my stuff with me) back to the reception and handed it off to the new occupants of the room.

Forty five minutes later I was almost home. They called me on my cell: their luggage was gone from the room! Their purses and shoes were still on the floor by the bed, but their bags were GONE. Thinking back, I am not sure if their bags were there or not when I came in to change.

I am 100% certain I checked the door when I left to make sure it was closed. The key printout/scan that the hotel performed even shows that I used the key twice in a row, because I let the door shut, then realized my toothbrush was still in the bathroom, ran back in to get it, and left. At that last point, I remember stopping to make sure (this time) that I had not left anything else, surveying my belongings, then shutting the door. All the other times that the door scan shows the key was used are times we can account for. No one was in the hall way; in fact the room was so far down the hall that no one was ever around at all really.

The hotel filed an incident report and we plan to file a police report today. The bags never showed up. I am an extremely logical, common sense type, but I am totally freaked out by this theft and I can't shake the feeling that the bags just vanished in thin air! (Obviously not, but I am so disturbed by this...)

Here is the clincher: the hotel security tapes show no one coming in or out with those bags. The bags were bright red crocodile, fairly large (larger than my small rolling suitcase). They were not even packed--stuff was coming all out of them since we'd just dumped them on the floor and continued to get ready for the wedding. Someone would have had to pack everything in them and lug BOTH of them (red, remember!) down 17 stories to the street.

My husband is convinced that it's an inside job and someone in the hotel knows how to work around the card reader in the door.

My questions for you: Has anything like this ever happened to you, and if so, what did you do about it? Also, do you know anything about those card readers and how they work?

yikes bamakelly, I always have a fear I will come back and my stuff be gone, I am topping so hopefully someone will have some helpful input...(I am from AL myself)

What a bizarre story. Why would a thief leave the purses, but take the clothes??? Was the luggage itself expensive? The whole thing sounds like it came out of one of those two-minute mystery books!

Are they sure they didn't leave their luggage elsewhere? A room mix-up or something? Or a prank by a couple of the fellows in the wedding party?

Nothing but an "inside" job makes sense, but still, why leave the purses behind? I'm sure the key record thing can be "fixed," but I will be interested in reading a plausible explanation if someone has worked in security or the hotel industry.

Sorry your friends wedding turned into such chaos. Hopefully the honeymoon will be more peaceful! Hope your son is feeling better, BK.

Oh Bama, what a mess!

I hope that somehow the suitcases turn up.

And I hope your little fellow is well now.

Byrd


Byrd

How horrible. First, I hope everyone who was sick is doing better.

I'm not sure I followed the whole story, but the only thing I can equate to this was many years ago when my apt. in NYC was burgled. The "thief" took all of my really valuable things and put them in my very expensive luggage. It was in a doorman building and after making a police report and speaking at length to the police (and being told it was unlikely my stuff would be recovered) I started doing some investigating of my own and became convinced it was an inside job done by the superintendent of the building!
I believe to this day I was right. The superintendent was miraculously "transferred".

They MUST make a police report right away. You MUST post this incident on tripadvisor for that hotel. They may be able to recoup some money if they have homeowners insurance. This further convinces me it's not worth having nice luggage. I honestly think it's just an invitation to get stolen. Was there a garage in the hotel? Do they also have surveillance cameras in the service elevator???

How sweet of y'all to wish my son well! It was our first ear infection (he is 1); he is much better now that the meds have kicked in.

The story really is so bizarre. The prank idea is a reasonable first thought, but almost everyone attending this wedding was from out of town; very few people knew each other at all, and certainly not well enough to play jokes like that. Besides, after all the hotel security became involved (and a police report in the works) you'd think they'd have shown up by now. Also, because my relationship to the bride was through work, I really knew no one there at all, so no one really knew which room was mine, etc. We were spread out all over a huge hotel, they did not room us together. I guess the other two girls could have told guests where they were staying, but it just doesn't seem like cocktail conversation, especially given the fact that we were so focused on the wedding itself.

Also, no chance of a room mixup. We'd all returned to the room earlier in the day to retrieve a watch, a hairdryer, etc, from that very luggage. The hotel staff checked every vacant but dirty room right away, and later checked each room as they cleaned. No luggage to be found anywhere.

The only reason I can think of why they took the luggage and left the purses is because we all had our wallets with us--the ourses just had basic items like lipstick, etc in them. The luggage was very pretty -- not terribly expensive but certainly fashionable and desirable. So maybe it was for the luggage, but even then, they had to pack clothes and smaller makeup bags into the bigger red bag before taking it--why not just dump it out and take the empty luggage itself? The only thing of real value that was stolen (besides favorite jeans, etc) was a strand of pearls. You'd think a thief would have left the dirty pajamas behind!

I am still so puzzled; I can hardly think of anything else!

I know some Fodorites have experience in the hotel industry and I am dying to know how those card reader things work. Are they tamper-proof? This just HAS to be an inside job.....right?

Thanks for "listening" and your well wishes.

The locks that use key cards are secure. When they are "read", they give some sort of a computerized printout which show all keys ever used during a specific period, including maids or engineering keys. If your room was cleaned, that maid's key will be on the record as well.

My husband is a hotel GM and we lived in until this last move 3 weeks ago. We had an issue once where we thought someone had been in our casita...a TV was unplugged and moved as if someone was in the midst of taking it, but was interrupted. We had the locks read and it showed only our cards used for entry. Well....lo and behold, we noticed a couple of days later that we had a problem with one of the doors not closing properly. As this occurred on one of the days when landscaping was being taken care of and this door was in the landscaping area, we think it was probably one of that crew who came in through the not-quite-closed-door and I interrupted them when I returned home. There were 5 doors into and out of our casita and we think I came in one when I returned home and they left via another. My point is, once our locks were "read" showing only our keys having been used, my husband was absolutely certain no staff was involved. I know he's got more info on the technology, and they are a great and secure system.

Now I don't know if this is true of all hotels, but ours also checks employees packages as they leave the building. All packages have to be inspected (how demoralizing would that be!) and there are security cameras on those entrances/exits as well. If I was giving something to housekeeping...a gift for instance...it would also have to be accompanied by a note to the effect that I'd given it.

It seems incredible that big red suitcases could exit without a trace under any circumstance. I can think of a couple of scenarios where someone could get them from the room, but they still would have to get them out of the hotel. One scenario is what I described above...the door didn't close properly and that's possible in the rushing about with a wedding...that someone didn't close it well. Another is that someone got in while the maid was in the room cleaning, but that doesn't seem as likely seeing as they had to be repacked. Who would risk taking that amount of time?

If they were real croc, that's where the money was, not the purses most likely, although it seems a thief would just grab those as well. Very weird!

barmakelly, we were writing at the same time. I want to say too I'm glad your son is better. Ear infections and the accompanying pain is something...I still recall our daughter's first one and that was about 33 years ago!

Please do let us know what you learn, and I'll ask my husband more about the locks when he gets home tonight. I just know that after ours were read, he was dead certain staff had not come in. (Landscaping crew by the way is an outside contractor...they come onto the property in trucks and leave the same way and some are sort of grim looking, I'm sorry to say!)

OO--Thanks for the info abot the card readers. The reader only showed housekeeping came in once, when we saw them, but if the door was somehow left open I guess it's possible it wouldn't show other entrance/exits. The door slammed so hard each time it would surprise me though.

Mclaurie--as usual, great advice from you. The hotel staff and security were both extremely accommodating. I had not thought of writing it up on Tripadvisor, but I think I should--after I give it a little more time so I can write an accurate report. We are in the process of the police report. With two of the three of us from out of town, we should all be able to make our statements in Birmingham by the end of the week. The other girls were thinking a hotel incident report was enough; I am insisting on a police report. Not sure about the location of the surveillance cameras; I just know they could see most of the hallway outside our room. Past that I am not sure. Security is very visible at this particular hotel, but you never know how seriously they really take things or if they are really paying attention.

Thanks for the info. Any more advice is appreciated!

This misfortune should be a wakeup call to others to make certain the door is latched. Don't slam it, just firmly pull it shut, then push to verify it's latched.

It's not uncommon for some dishonest employees, and probably as often some crooked guests, to do something like jamming objects into the door jam slot (I can't remember the correct name for the "hole" that the doorlatch goes into).

Hotel operators struggle a LOT to prevent things like this from happening - it does little good to accuse the hotel operator, who is as much a victim as the guest. Yet hotel operators do help bring some of crime upon themselves, as most operators do NOT like to call police, as they feel the local news stories will give them a black eye. Similarly, they often decline to press charges against guests or employees.

The good thing is that this trend has started to reverse. Owners are beginning to WANT to be known as willing to play hard-ball with those who would defraud them and/or their guests. I hope the items are recovered.

The plot thickens!!

We filed a police report and the detective is really on the ball. I am actually pleasantly surprsied that he is giving this much attention to the case. Anyway, he has been reviewing security tapes for the last 2 days and he located the luggage on tape! Two people, a man and a woman, were spotted on the escalator carrying the luggage! They walked in plain sight, right in front of the survellaince camera, right in front of the security desk, all around the hotel lobby, and down a very long hallway, through a crosswalk, and into the parking deck. With two huge red bags. Like they belonged to them. Down 17 floors. Out the door.


Judging from the time on the tape, it appears that they either followed me up to the room when I went in to change and leave, or they were (gasp) already in the room when I came in. We suspect the balcony may have been their point of entry!! The balcony did not open to the outside; rather it opened to an atrium within the hotel. It was extremely close to the adjoining room balconies.

Lesson learned: Lock the balcony door even on the 17th floor.
And file a police report if you ever have anything stolen in a hotel room.

The detective is continuing to review tapes and will check out the parking garage next, in addition to the camera which sweep the atrium.

Oh bamakelly, I am so glad you got the PD to pay attention to this. And how scary to think they could have been in the room when you were there.

A "heads up" to all of us about not being relaxed with rooms on the higher floors. In fact I left the window opened a bit at my hotel in Charleston last week. That was stupid as below the window was a rooftop. I will never do that again.

Thanks for letting us know about this. And I am sure sorry about all the problems you had. Bet you are glad to be home.

Wow, good lessons all the way around. And how frightening that they may have been in the room. I'm surprised you didn't "catch" them when you went back in for your toothbrush. But thank goodness you didn't! Your guardian angel was surely with you. Thanks for keeping us up to date on the mystery.

Wow, this is a fascinating story!

Fascinating, and a good lesson for the rest of us, I agree! So did these thieves crawl from another balcony onto yours?? Is there that much money to be made from suitcases and their contents?? Fascinating!

The balconies are big concrete structures, and they are very very close together (like inches...). You can see inside the rooms around you if you are on a balcony. The detective's theory is they may have been on a neighboring balcony and just stepped on over. The bags were right by the balcony window on the floor. They are running checks on the guests in neighboring rooms.

The time frame works better for that, and we know the balcony door was unlocked. Also the curtains were wide open. Looking back, I realize how dumb that was.

The bags only held a couple of valuable things--a strand of pearls and a camera. The bags themselves looked expensive (they were actually featured on the Oprah show) but in fact they were "faux" and only worth about $75 each.

The amazing thing is what we found on the camera: they actually DID pack the bags back up and zip them neatly closed (they were spewing out their contents when we'd left them). They did NOT know the hotel very well: they came up and down an escalator that took them the wrong direction, had to turn around and come back. They were a couple, each a different race -- not a big thing to me, but in a Southern city like Bham I hate to say it does turn heads sometimes. They also wandered all around with those big red bags before leaving the hotel. They were dressed very shabby for a four-star hotel. They were just SO conspicuous that they were inconspicuous I guess!

Also, I did not realize this but there were two additional bags that were stolen as well. They were smaller but heavier and just contained toiletries and shoes. They stole those too. Each person had two bags, a red one and the other smaller bag. This may be why they left purses and shoes behind: they only had hands to carry what they had.

This whole scenario just really blows my mind. I guess I would just think a thief would want to steal from a room closer to the elevator, closer to the street, and skip the escalators and main hallways. I'd also think they'd want to keep away from the lobby and front desk. And the highest floor of the hotel. Major lesson learned for me!

Do you mind telling me if the dectective was from the Birmingham Police Dept. or was it privately funded or hotel association? I am really impressed, as I know in Chicago that property crimes do not get this level of introspection.

Thanks also for conveying the real message this contains. My one son allows his 8 and 10 year olds to trek together in and out of the hotel room in the water sport/park resorts and I think it is an absolute never. I'm going to show this to him. Thanks!

This is all such an amazing and frightening story. But since those cameras and recording devices on the locks are so good, it seems now it should be easy for them to check the entrances to and from the rooms next door and then compare the hallway shots at those times to see if in fact they see the same people as the ones with your bags.
I'd love to hear an ending to this story like "two thieves in Omaha arrested for theft in Birmingham hotel."

Wow!! What a story! Scary. I wonder too if they were already in there when you went back. Gosh. What a GOOD lesson for all of us. I've never been particularly concerned about locking sliders to balconies either, and I should know better as we've been broken into that way. Wild horses couldn't get me to climb over a balcony ledge, no matter how close to each other.

Not to hijack your thread, but this story might serve as a lesson too. We were living in a hotel my DH was running (not Tampa), and had a suite on the top floor with a nice patio off our bedroom with lounge chairs, grill, table and chairs, fountain etc. It was actually part of the roof of the building as the 7th floor was smaller than the 6th...so there was roof space all around the 7th. A portion had pavers and was used for our patio, then if you went around to the other side of the building, same roof, there was a sun deck for guests, and at least one other room with a balcony on that side. All these had a chest high walls separating them from the roof.

One spring evening we went to bed and left the slider to the patio open but screen door closed, never dreaming anyone could get to us...or believing they would try. I was in my normal sleep position, on tummy, face down, but wasn't quite asleep yet when I heard a noise. I rolled over onto my back, looked toward the foot of our bed, the direction of the noise, and there was a person standing in the now open screen door. DH was already blissfully asleep. I sat up..don't know what I said, but said something and the person didn't move! That really scared me so I called my husband's name (screamed his name is probably more like it, LOL), he sat up too and THEN the person turned and ran, put his hands on the wall like you would that old gym horse we used to have to vault in HS, and vaulted over it. We called security right away of course, but he wasn't caught.

Flash forward, same hotel, a couple of years later. Lesson learned, we always locked that door! DS was home from college for the summer. His bedroom was at the opposite end of the suite from ours. I was up and out early this particular day and he was in his room doing something on the computer. He heard a noise from our bedroom, but we have two cats who could get rowdy and he thought it was them. Then he heard more noise and went to see what they were up to, and found a man standing in our bedroom looking at a big display cabinet full of antiques we had in there. DS asks what he's doing and the man tells him he was working on the roof. DS then saw that the slider to our patio had been lifted off it's track. It was still locked, but once lifted, the guy, who was slim, could squeeze through the opening. At that point...I almost hate to relay what DS did next (remember...young and foolhardy) DS turned, went into the kitchen and came back with a knife at which point the guy ran, again jumping over the balcony wall and DS in pursuit. Fortunately he'd stopped long enough to call security giving the cat burglar a good head start. He wasn't caught...not then anyway, but he was caught a couple months later, doing the same thing at another hotel down the way from us. In this case I believe it was an exterior balcony and they have one way glass in their balconies, so although guests can see out, anyone on the balcony cannot see in. He was on the balcony trying to break into the room and the guest was IN the room watching him try. Security was called and he was caught. Police had dusted our door for fingerprints and it was the same person. DS's last day of summer break was spent in court testifying against the boy..he was a boy, late teens, nicely dressed, and his parents accompanied him to court. He was given probation only, probably for the best providing he got some help that might turn him around.

Needless to say...we replaced the slider with a door that swung open, and could be securely locked. If you are in a room with a slider, make sure it's locked and if there are pins as well, put the pins in place too! These hotels were both nice hotels in a beautiful historic district--albeit one which could have problems because the perimeter of the historic district has some really bad areas on 3 sides. This sort of thing rarely happens, but it's always a possibility!

Your thieves were pretty dumb bamakelly! Imagine walking around the hotel with big red bags, so easily noticed and identified! Geez Louise!

JJ5: I am also amazed at the actual attention they are giving this. We filed the police report, never thinking they would actually follow up on it so closely, but hoping it would help the girls file for property insurance replacement costs. (Few individual items were valuable, but added together it will be an expensive replacement.) The detective on the case is from the B'ham PD. The Sheraton filed an incident report but quickly lost interest until the PD got involved. Now the security personnel at the Sheraton is working very cooperatively with the detective from the PD. Amazing for sure. Makes you think there is more to the story that we don't know. (?)

Patrick, now that they have a clear picture and a time frame, they plan to view tapes from the parking garage and get a car associated with them. If they get that, they should be able to get identification fairly easily. The Sheraton also takes video at the registration desk so they should be able to find shots of them there as well, if they in fact were staying next door.

Their main goal does not seem to be figuring out "how" but "who", so I imagine the parking garage tapes will take precedence over the hotel tapes.

I'll keep you posted. Especially if there is a funny headline like the one you suggested!