Wondering what others' opinions on this problem:
At a certain Starwood hotel which shall not be named at the moment (since they're working on the issue), I requested a laundry service for one of my shirts. I got it back two days ago and only got to check it this morning (it was inside a box).
To my horror, I found that the color has been totally ruined (original shirt was darkish blue and now it has stains of red everywhere). I brought this problem to the manager's attention and he has been very responsive about it. I'm just waiting to see what the official response will be.
Usually I would just write it off but the problem is this shirt is actually kinda expensive (original Brioni...).
Has anyone ever encountered similar problems?
Update (02/08/2012):
Another update:
The hotel is Le Meridien San Francisco.
I checked in to the hotel yesterday and this morning I was told that my shirt is with the front desk. Met with the manager and was told that they "got me a new shirt." He opened the package and SURPRISE: it was my very discolored old shirt
.
The color went from darkish blue to LIGHT blue. I was incredibly annoyed at that point but I kept my calm and inspected it. Then I pulled pictures of my shirt with the damage and showed it to him. I asked him again whether it was a new shirt and he quietly said no
. After that, I simply said it was unacceptable and he told me he will get back to me about it.
Looks like I'm gonna have to write to Starwood CS about this
Update (02/09/2012):
I wrote to SPG CS last night and was told that a case is now opened.
A few hours ago, the hotel manager got back to me and forwarded an email from the laundry service's COO (apparently laundry service is outsourced in this hotel). The COO claimed that my extremely discolored shirt "appeared to be in a good shape" after the whole chemical process and regardless, still offered to settle this claim for about 40% the value
.
The hotel manager told me to respond to the laundry service's COO directly. It looks like he is trying to wash his hands off this problem
If I had known that the laundry service is outsourced, I would not have sent my expensive shirts for laundry here
Update (02/10/2012):
I had to negotiate with the COO of the laundry service directly. He kept on haggling over the price too
After a few back and forth, finally managed to get 100% value back.
The hotel manager handled this issue very poorly as he is supposed to be the one negotiating with the laundry service instead of me
I cannot believe he pretty much stayed on the sidelines the entire time