Dear St Regis Hotel & Resorts, I would like to bring to your attention an incident that occurred at The St. Regis Macao on Sept 21st, 2017 as well as their mishandling on the matter.

Summary: Around USD 600 were stolen during my stay at St. Regis Macao. I reported this directly to the hotel and was told to wait as they claimed they would get back to me shortly. That never happened and I followed up with them when I returned to the hotel only to be told that they couldn't do anything as they were waiting for me! Because of the misinfo communicated to me earlier (where I was instructed to wait for THEM), the culprit had already gone home for the day and thereby we missed the chance to catch the culprit with the evidence required. In spite of the fault of the hotel, no guest relation recovery action was taken. For more details (and there are a lot more things that made this experience as appalling as it had been), please proceed to read a detailed account of what transpired. Here are the series of events regarding what happened during my stay at St. Regis Macao.

09/21/2017: At around 4:30pm, housekeeping came to clean my suite. I was sitting at the desk in the livingroom the entire time. The housekeeping lady insisted that she vacuum my suite, which I thought was strange but I let her. When she left the suite at around 5:30pm, I went back into the bedroom where the safety deposit box was and realized I had not locked it. Concerned, I double checked the money in my wallet and pouch and found that I was missing at least HKD 3000 to 4000. When I checked the pouch where I kept my USD, I also found that USD 200 were missing (I remembered exactly how much USD I had with me). As I had to go to the hospital to get my medical report since I'm flying early the next day, I quickly sent an email to the butler team to let them know what happened AND also personally talked to one of the butlers (Kristy) in person. Kristy said she would talk to her boss and they would handle it, while the butler team emailed back and wrote, "Reference to your HKD and USD enquiry, we do apologize for your inconvenience, allow us to check with our related department and we will reply to you shortly." This was at 5:36pm. Trusting the hotel's words and following their instructions, I went to attend to my errands but by the time I returned at 11:30pm, there was still no replies! Upon following up, the manager had the audacity to say that they were unable to proceed because they were waiting for me the entire time! This was completely untrue and inaccurate because I was told to wait for the hotel to revert! By the way, I would also like to add here that the security manager on duty at the time was very vocally displeased with the fact that he had to attend to the matter as I could hear him yelling in the local language about this (once again, these people didn't know I understood Mandarin and Cantonese). Police was finally called and the officer told me that since the staff had already gone home for the day, there would be little chance of recovering the money or finding evidence. At this point, Sammy the night manager translated for the police and told me that I could either pursue the case or not, but in either case the police would investigate. What they didn't realize is I actually understood the language so I knew Sammy mistranslated. Truth is, only by pursuing would you be able to contact the justice dept and get fingerprinting done! So, had I not understood Cantonese, the hotel would have gotten away with one other thing! I told them I would pursue, at which point Sammy had become noticeably colder toward me. I waited for the fingerprint specialist to arrive to dust for prints and then went to the station to finish the process. By the time I returned to the hotel to finish packing, it was already 5:30am and I wasn't even able to enjoy my final night at the hotel.

09/22/2017: I checked out at 7:30am, after all the mishap and lack of care in how things are handled, the hotel still did nothing to try to remedy. After I had reiterated about what had gone wrong (namely the fact that their miscommunication made it impossible to catch the culprit or find evidence - which means the hotel can now get away with this), Sammy gave me a dirty look and didn't say anything to me while begrudgingly removed the dining bill (only USD 60) from my total bill. After that, I went down to the taxi to head to the ferry terminal. However, this wasn't all! I overheard the taxi driver ranting that the luggages were heavy so he expected me to carry them and unload them by myself upon arrival. I have a bad back, so I was alarmed when I heard that and I asked Kristy the butler what he just said. Kristy said he didn't say anything and since I understood the language, I told her to ask again. She asked and the taxi driver repeated what I heard, at which point I got fed up and told Kristy to get me a new taxi. Instead of doing so right away, she went back to look for Sammy, who (completely ignoring my presence) just told the bellboy to go with me to the ferry terminal with ME still footing the taxi bill! Also, it should be noted that throughout the entire process, Sammy the manager did not even bother giving me his business card.

09/23/2017: Received an email from the Assistant Manager (so even more junior now) telling me that they are "sorry" for what happened and that since I had decided to pursue it with the police, they won't do anything until this had been resolved. Considering these people were the ones who caused the window of opportunity to capture the culprit and locate evidence to be missed, they know there will not be any resolutions and had therefore used this as an excuse to not conduct any service recovery!

In summary, there are multiple instances throughout this ordeal that were alarming and demonstrated bad customer service:

1. Wrong instructions being given by hotel staffs on two occasions (by the butler team via email, and by the butler I spoke with in the hallway) telling me to wait for them to get back to me "shortly" in regards to the monetary theft in my room. Wrong info being relayed to me resulted in the culprit returning home by the time the follow-up occurred, thereby making it possible for her to take the money and all evidence back with her. Doing so also conveniently eliminated other issues for the hotels afterwards because now there is no proof and will be difficult to resolve the case

2. When I returned to the hotel and followed up with them again (since they never got back to me "shortly" as promised), the hotel had the audacity to say that they were waiting for me. This was never communicated and now they blamed it on the guest.

3. When the police came and said that I could either choose to pursue or not pursue, Sammy the manager mistranslated what was said. If it weren't for the fact that I understood the language, I would've mistakenly chosen not to pursue, which would mean there would have been no fingerprint dusting and the case would have just been left on the side and won't be looked at again unless the exact incident happened in the future. This action was especially disturbing as it showed that the management did not want me to pursue the issue any further

4. No business card was given by the guest relations, and in spite of my multiple requests to speak with someone who is more senior (a VP level or above - because having worked in the same industry before I know there is someone in that position who should know of this and attend to this matter personally), the request was ignored and instead they sent an even more junior person (someone even more junior than Sammy) to email me and tell me that because I was the one who had chosen to pursue it with the police, they won't be able to do anything until there had been resolutions. This is irresponsible as they have placed the blame back onto the guest, and also knowing that there will most likely be no resolutions since it was their misinfo and miscommunication at the beginning where they asked me to wait that allowed the culprit to get away.

5. No guest relation recovery actions were taken. Sammy the manager had turned aloof and cold ever since I had stated I would pursue the matter with authority. He gave me a dirty look when he removed the food bill of USD 60 from my bill during checkout, which was insulting because USD 60 is a slap in the face in light of the stress and monetary loss that I had gone through. He did not even see me off nor did he think of arranging a ride with the hotel (the hotel has its own limo service) to take me to the ferry terminal. Instead I've had to fork the bill myself. In addition, the taxi they had flagged down had a taxi driver who stated he would not help me with the luggages. If it weren't for the fact that i understood the local language and caught what he said and asked Kristy the butler to reverify (she had claimed he said nothing of the sort), I would have had to be stuck with that taxi and further hurt my back trying to move the luggages.

I am appalled, upset, and disappointed with the mishandling, lack of care exhibited, and lack of responsibility taken by the hotel management team and hotel staff. Now that I'm short USD 600, I had to cancel a good portion of my trip. Throughout the entire process, the hotel had made no offer or effort to alleviate my situation; which could have been very easily solved by giving me star points that I can at least use for hotel stays during the remainder of my trip. As an SPG platinum member, this is grossly disappointing and unacceptable.

Overall

Around USD 600 were stolen from an unlocked safety deposit box when housekeeping came to clean my suite on Sept 21st.  I know it was housekeeping because that was the only person who had entered my bedroom (where the safety deposit box was kept) that day.  I notified hotel right away at 5:36pm and was told to wait and that they would get back to me "shortly" but they never did.  When I returned from my errands in the evening, I was told that they couldn't do anything because they were waiting for me - which was inaccurate.  Because they had told me to wait and I trusted them on that, by the time I return the culprit had already gone home and thereby any evidence would have been removed.  No service recovery actions were taken, the duty manager didn't even bother giving me his business card. A subsequent email from St. Regis said because I was the one who had chosen to pursue with the local authority, they can't do anything until this had been resolved.  Issue is, this won't be resolved because the hotel's inacurrante instructions had caused everyone to miss the window of opportunity and allow the culprit to get away with the evidence.

In summary, there are multiple instances throughout this ordeal that were alarming and demonstrated bad customer service:
1. Wrong instructions being given by hotel staffs on two occasions (by the butler team via email, and by the butler I spoke with in the hallway) telling me to wait for them to get back to me "shortly" in regards to the monetary theft in my room. Wrong info being relayed to me resulted in the culprit returning home by the time the follow-up occurred, thereby making it possible for her to take the money and all evidence back with her. Doing so also conveniently eliminated other issues for the hotels afterwards because now there is no proof and will be difficult to resolve the case
2. When I returned to the hotel and followed up with them again (since they never got back to me "shortly" as promised), the hotel had the audacity to say that they were waiting for me. This was never communicated and now they blamed it on the guest.
3. When the police came and said that I could either choose to pursue or not pursue, Sammy the manager mistranslated what was said. If it weren't for the fact that I understood the language, I would've mistakenly chosen not to pursue, which would mean there would have been no fingerprint dusting and the case would have just been left on the side and won't be looked at again unless the exact incident happened in the future. This action was especially disturbing as it showed that the management did not want me to pursue the issue any further
4. No business card was given by the guest relations, and in spite of my multiple requests to speak with someone who is more senior (a VP level or above - because having worked in the same industry before I know there is someone in that position who should know of this and attend to this matter personally), the request was ignored and instead they sent an even more junior person (someone even more junior than Sammy) to email me and tell me that because I was the one who had chosen to pursue it with the police, they won't be able to do anything until there had been resolutions. This is irresponsible as they have placed the blame back onto the guest, and also knowing that there will most likely be no resolutions since it was their misinfo and miscommunication at the beginning where they asked me to wait that allowed the culprit to get away.
5. No guest relation recovery actions were taken. Sammy the manager had turned aloof and cold ever since I had stated I would pursue the matter with authority. He gave me a dirty look when he removed the food bill of USD 60 from my bill during checkout, which was insulting because USD 60 is a slap in the face in light of the stress and monetary loss that I had gone through. He did not even see me off nor did he think of arranging a ride with the hotel (the hotel has its own limo service) to take me to the ferry terminal. Instead I've had to fork the bill myself. In addition, the taxi they had flagged down had a taxi driver who stated he would not help me with the luggages. If it weren't for the fact that i understood the local language and caught what he said and asked Kristy the butler to reverify (she had claimed he said nothing of the sort), I would have had to be stuck with that taxi and further hurt my back trying to move the luggages.

I am appalled, upset, and disappointed with the mishandling, lack of care exhibited, and lack of responsibility taken by the hotel management team and hotel staff. Now that I'm short USD 600, I had to cancel a good portion of my trip. Throughout the entire process, the hotel had made no offer or effort to alleviate my situation; which could have been very easily solved by giving me star points that I can at least use for hotel stays during the remainder of my trip. As an SPG platinum member, this is grossly disappointing and unacceptable.