I've been following your situation, bamakelly. Hang in there!

bamakelly
I read in our local paper of the arrest of two women who regularly stole name brand clothing and sold them in second hand stores. They had made thousands of dollars doing this.

Just want you to know we continue to check in on this thread bamakelly. You go girl ((Y))

Can you please explain the "video just rolls and does not record" bit. Are you saying there's no tape in it??? Does there not lie some blame there? Can you explain the thinking behind the inside job theory?

Many video recording systems just tape for a certain amount of time and then tape over the old recording and many businesses decide it isn't worth keeping the recording for long times so just let it tape over. They figure they have the tape if they get robbed or something happens that they know within a day or so. We always recommend that our customers (we are in the security biz) keep tapes for at least a month and some do but many don't. Some don't like having to keep a tape library and the expense. So.... you end up without tape when you need it.

Quite a spooky story! We trust, so much, and don't expect that trust to be violated. I sure need to be more cautious!

I have a story, too. It happened about 20 years ago in Chattanooga. I had traveled to Chattanooga from Atlanta with a group of coworkers, for a work activity. We were staying in a hotel near the downtown area. One of my coworkers called us and arranged for us to go out to dinner together. We were to meet in her room. One of the guys in the group told her he'd be right there, but he never showed up. After waiting 20 minutes, we grew concerned and decided to go to his room. As we got there, he was just emerging, shaken. He told us that as soon as he had stepped out of his room into the corridor, he had been jumped by two fellows. They threw the hood of his sweatshirt over his head so he couldn't see and thrust him back into the room and pushed him on the bed. One of them had a gun to his head while the other rifled through his wallet. The man holding the gun to his head kept saying, "Should I kill him? Should I kill him?" They ripped the bedsheets and tied him up, and finally left him. He had just gotten free when we arrived.

This fellow had moved reluctantly to Atlanta for a job promotion, but after this incident, he decided it wasn't worth it to be living in a place he didn't like. Also, he didn't have the stomach for traveling anymore, which our job required. He quit and he and his wife moved to a small town on the coast, where he had always dreamed of living.

After the incident, the police said one should always look out of the peep hole on one's hotel room before stepping into the hall. I used to look out the peep holes, but haven't thought to do it for years....Maybe I should!

I always check the hall before I exit and I always check the room/bathroom door position etc. before I enter. And I always check mirrors and bed surround walls for holes/peepholes (these don't show in wall paper/textured wall designs.) Many think it paranoid. I do not. I myself and also other family members have been stranger assulted. Be it 40 years before or yesterday, you never forget what it feels like. Men actually have a harder time living with it afterwards then women do. Many of the more lucky and adventurous among us are so trusting that it makes it child's play for some perps.

Just this last month a SW suburban Chicago motel rape/murder was solved after about 22 years. The man confessed on his deathbed. He was a employee of this large and quite nice establishment himself. It does not have to be in a "bad" neighborhood. The crime rate is 100% if it's you who are the victim.

Kureiff:
I like that House Done, Life Done thingy!

mms: Thanks for reposting. Reminds me of the scripture, "How lovely are the FEET of those who bring good news"

OO: Amoung our friends it has always been the mothers' friends who give the shower but I just attended a very nice dinner shower two weeks ago given by mom and sister.

Guess it's too early in the morning! Sorry for posting to the wrong post.

Hi everyone. Thanks for following our story--I do hope it keeps some of you from having the same encounter.

mclaurie: I guess I should have said "they have CAMERAS, but they just roll and don't record..." The boneheaded move by the parking garage people is that they employ someone (in the entrance/exit booth) to sit and watch tv monitors which shows live action, but there is no recording at all. Kinda strange, given the fact that they have the capability to do it but don't, but I guess cali and others have a point there.

As for the "inside job" theory, the detective thinks that the housekeeping people OR the room service people (they'd brought breakfast that morning) saw something they'd like and decided to come back and get it later. Given the fact that they were revamping the security system that very week, he thinks someone knew how to tamper with the key reader and get inside....OR get in through the balcony. (Though it sounds ridiculous, if you could see the set up at this particular hotel, you could see where he is coming from.) He thinks they came in to do their job and saw the luggage and decided to send friends back to get it.

Judging from the time on the video of entry/exit into the hotel, the thieves literally walked in, went straight to the 17th floor, took the luggage and left. They wasted little time, if any. So that's what I meant by an inside job: hotel employee sending someone back to get luggage that they liked, using inside resources to circumnavigate the door lock. Sneaky, eh?!

Some of these other stories make me never want to stay in a hotel again! yikes!

This post has certainly been eye-opening and provided lots of interesting and useful information. I'm so impressed with the detective for pursuing this crime.

Last month in San Francisco, my husband and I stayed at the Grand Hyatt. There was a morning when he forgot something and went back to the room while housekeeping was there. The lady asked him to use his room key in the closed door to prove that he actually was the person staying in the room. We were so impressed by her security measures! I just wanted to share a positive experience.

Lee, I was interested to read your post on the GrandHyatt as I sometimes stay there and my daughter & SIL always do. Good to know staff is security conscious.

One thing I thought of and I am sure everyone on Fodor's knows this, but just in case someone doesn't - when you check in the desk clerk should NEVER say your hotel room number outloud. If they do insist on a different room. If they refuse insist that they get the manager. And I never get on an elevator with someone "hanging" around the lobby.

Oh boy, life is complicated is it not!

I have just read several of the posts here and I don't think anyone brought up this safety issue-connecting doors.

I worked in management in the hotel industry for several years and have enough stories to write a book. But the best piece of adice I can give comes directly from a personal experience.

I awoke around 4am in a very nice hotel in Cincinnati a few years ago with the men in the adjoining room to mine trying to come in thru the adjoining door. Very scary experience! Those doors are fairly thin and only have one lock.

As has already been pointed out, it does not matter the brand of hotel or the number of stars, crime can happen anywhere. Thieves are going to go where they know there is something to steal which is not usually at the local budget type motel.

JJ5 you always have a worst case scenario story for every thing!

OO-the safest I've ever felt in a hotel was your hubby's old Hyatt in Savannah over St. Patrick's weekend.

bamakelly, thanks for taking the time for this invaluable information.

I would never have thought to get the local PD involved and it is obviously expiditing this process and sounds like the hotel will at least reimburse your friends for their loss.

Well I can tell you that this post has made me think! It is so eay to become inattentive to your surroundings.

I am traveling for business in June and July. I think I will be a little more wary about some things I have done in the past.

I am definitely not leaving balcony doors or windows open.

I have been in some hotels where I have seen housekeeping cleaning and proping the door open. They did not look like empty rooms to me. It did not sit well with me, obviously. Has anyone else seen this? How do you stop it from happening if you do.

Geepers I sort of don't even want house keeping in my room anymore.

Go Travel:

Sorry, I can't let that last little remark past (and once again as I have more than several times now) because it is just not true. In fact quite the opposite, and you don't know me at all- so who are you to judge that anyway? Certainly not my superior.

Sometimes little details like checking mirrors/placements especially, break entire scams open and not just property crime either. You should walk just one day in some of these girls' shoes who I see bi-monthly.

In my former post as a Crisis Center phone opperator/dispatch and also because of my Counseling degree and many hundreds of hours spent picking people (and that is NOT always women by the way) up, being their intake person, and generally going to court with them at times- you have no idea how many "worse case scenaros" happen every day. And it didn't happen to you at 17 either.

And if it ever happened to you,God forbid, the crime statistic would be 100% for you- and you will love someone like me to be in the picture, rather than a hard-nosed cop who has seen it all and whose empathy has worn thin. Actually, my dear, I don't even see the worse case scenaros- they end with my brother's detail and in the morgue.

And if I were negative I would not TRAVEL, nor bother to help people help themselves in some of the worst crime areas in the USA. What are you doing in that groove, besides making "let them eat cake" comments, like the stated "fact" that it's impossible to raise a kid on a salary of $59,000 a year. I told that gem to some of my students who are very much moms and they got a real laugh out of that one. I'm sick of your snotty personal comments and have been for months- so this reaction is not just for the above comment. Why don't you take a kindness pill each morning- you certainly have negated mine- I admit it.

The Grand Hyatt may have instituted tougher security measures after an incident that happened about a year ago at another Hyatt in the Bay Area (don't remember which one).

An elderly woman who was attending some sort of conference at the hotel was reported missing. Security said it searched all the rooms but could not find her.

Two days later she stumbled out of a room, saying she had been sleeping. It seems she had gotten confused and gone to the wrong room but a housekeeper had let her in. She had taken her medication and got into bed only to wake up two days later!

Hotel security was, of course, very embarrassed. The maid had let her in without questioning her becasue "she seemed like such a nice old lady." !!!

JJ5, how did you get all of that out of one small comment I made? It just seems like to ME, and only me, that whenever I read one of your replies, it is this horrible story about something that happened to someone you know.

Now if that is criticizing you, please tell me how?

I certainly wasn't judging you or slamming you just making an observation of my own.

JJ5, I'm with you.

I'm not on this board enough to follow the ins and outs but I'm a bit relieved to know that it's "not just me".

GoT's caustic remarks have stung me more than once. I used to try to figure out what in the world I did to draw her darts, but finally stopped giving it that much effort or thought.

I shook my head when I read the "worst case scenerio" remark. Uncalled for.

Sorry! I certainly did not mean to hurt anyone's feelings and apologize for any darts I've thrown.

Thanks, starrsville.

And GoT- how's about you post concerning what you know. And like I said, it's not about your one little comment stuck among the "conversation". As I said, it's cummulative.

I wipe the slate clean every day and I'm a grudgeless person. And to tell you the truth, oftentimes to keep doing what I do- I'm too tired to parry the zingers. But don't suppose that I don't notice them, and oftentimes it cheap shots at the less knowing or the less GoT'ish. We are not all the same and with all the same levels of choices. Just stop that and I'll stop noticing it.