Hi all, sorry it’s taken me so long to reply to this, I’ve not been online much in the last week. UPDATE ON SITUATION I have now settled this issue directly with both CRS and Travelodge, with both companies withdrawing in full the accusation in writing. The correspondence / story leading to this point is fairly long but I have detailed it out in full below in case anyone else receives similar correspondence in the future, which may assist them in rejecting the claim. I hope this helps others. THE FULL STORY...... From reading the comments and advice on this forum and other forums from some really kind people, I was able to put together a response and issue to CRS, as follows: Letter to CRS My Ref: XXXXXXXXX UKCRS PO Box 9877 Nottingham NG1 9GB For the attention of XXXXXXX RE: Alleged Damage to a Travelodge Room Your Reference: XXXXXX Dear XXXXXX, Further to your letter dated XXXXXX, outlining a Notice of Civil Claim against me relating to my stay at a Norwich Central Riverside Travelodge on XXXXXXX, I am writing to strenuously deny any such claim that I caused any damage of any kind to the room that I stayed in during my time with Travelodge. I find your accusations unpalatable, without any rationale, and simply unacceptable to accuse a decent, law-abiding citizen of such misconduct. I have received no contact from Travelodge on this matter but intend to take this up with them separately. Should legal action be taken against me, then I intend to defend myself vigorously whilst seeking to recover the maximum costs in doing so, and would furthermore request that you provide the following information without delay: 1) A full and detailed description from an independent third party of the supposed damage, including an explanation of the probable cause of the alleged damage. 2) Photographs showing the full extent of the damage. 3) A full and comprehensive account of who discovered the alleged damage, and at what time, the room number and the exact location of the damage. 4) Competing independent quotations for any repairs, including a fully detailed breakdown of any materials used and workmanship carried out. 5) A fully detailed and substantiated breakdown of any losses which Travelodge claim as a result of this unsubstantiated accusation. This is my final response on the matter. I will not be entering into any further correspondence with you and any legal action will be strongly defended. Yours sincerely, Letter to Travelodge Having sent the above to CRS, I then wrote an additional letter to Travelodge. This letter I sent on their online ‘contact us’ page as there was no obviously e-mail address, and then I followed it up by e-mailing the Chief Executive directly on grant dot hearn at travelodge dot co dot uk. The Letter I sent was as follows: My Ref: XXXXXX For the attention of Grant Hearn RE: Alleged Damage to a Travelodge Room Dear Mr. Hearn, As a customer who has used and continues to regularly use your hotel chain I was quite despondent to receive a bullish and aggressive letter from a company called Civil Recovery Solutions (CRS) claiming to be employed by you in order to recover costs relating to alleged damage caused to one of your rooms at the Norwich Central Riverside Travelodge during my stay on XXXXXX. I am writing, firstly, to strenuously deny any such claim that I caused any damage of any kind to the room that I stayed in during my time with Travelodge, and as such enclose a copy of a letter I have issued directly to CRS in response to the Notice of Civil Claim they have sent me (attached above in PDF). Secondly, I am writing to tell you how appalled I was to receive such an unsubstantiated and defamatory letter, with no contact made by Travelodge before instructing CRS to issue such forceful correspondence. If damage was discovered in the room that I stayed in, why has no-one from Travelodge contacted me to discuss it? You have all of my contact details, including my phone number, on your records. In fact, I have since stayed at the very same hotel and no mention of it has been made to me by any member of your team at Travelodge. One would have thought that if I had caused such damage you would have thought to tell me when I revisited your establishment in Norwich, having failed to contact me directly by either letter, e-mail or telephone?! I find it quite disturbing that a company of your size, and a brand as well recognised as yourselves find it acceptable to conduct your business affairs in this manner, by employing such bully tactics to innocent members of the public. I can assure you that had I have caused any damage to your property, I would have owned up to it straight away. I have no idea where the suggestion of damage came from (if indeed there was any damage), but can only presume that if there was, it was either done after my departure, either by a member of your staff or another guest, or that the damage was already present to an obscured area of the room which I didn’t notice upon my arrival, or you have mistakenly linked me to the wrong room. In either instance, I can categorically confirm that as far as I could see, there was no damage to that room at all when I stayed, and furthermore you have provided no comprehensive details of what the alleged damage consists of. I expect this letter of complaint to be taken to the highest level within your organisation, and that a full appreciation is given to the seriousness of the mistreatment I feel I have received as a result of CRS’s letter, and the unfounded allegations made against me. Furthermore, I demand a response as to why you have passed my details onto CRS without first contacting me at your earliest opportunity about the alleged offence! I look forward to your response on this matter in the prompt and dignified way that I deserve as a long term customer of yours, Yours sincerely, 1st Response from Travelodge I received a response the very next day to my letter, which read as follows (note the poor spelling / grammar etc): Dear Mr XXXXX Thank you for your recent contact that has reached our Chief Executive Office. Firstly I would like to apologise for an upset or inconvenience that has been caused to you as a result of the letter you have received from our debt collection company. I would like to apologise if the tone of this letter was at all aggressive or unpleasant as this is not the approach we like to take with our customers. I have investigated this matter further with our hotel and our internal departments and I can confirm that this claim against will now be withdrawn. If our hotels discover evidence of room damage it is our policy for this to be reported directly to Civil Recovery Claims who will recover the costs on our behalf. Following my investigations it appears that there is not sufficient information to uphold this claim. I can confirm that the current procedures we have in place for this is at present under review and development. Once again I am truly sorry for any distress or inconvenience we have have caused you as a result of this and I hope that we will be fortunate to receive your customer once more in the near future. Thank you again for contacting us. Kind regards Travelodge Customer Services -C.E.O's Office My Response to Travelodge’s Letter Naturally I was pleased that the case had been dropped against me, however I didn’t feel it satisfied my original dispute, as the letter implied the case was only dropped against me due to insufficient information, as opposed to the clear fact that I had nothing to do with it. Furthermore I was concerned that somewhere on their computer system was a log of the damage I had supposed caused, with a note saying that they couldn’t prove it so they dropped the claim, which naturally I wanted removing. I therefore responded highlighting my concerns and requesting all information held on me under the Data Protection Act: My Ref: XXXXXX Your Ref: XXXXXX Travelodge Head Office Sleepy Hollow Aylesbury Road Thame OX9 3AT For the attention of XXXXX – Travelodge Customer Services (CEO’s Office) RE: Alleged Damage to a Travelodge Room Dear Madam, Further to your recent correspondence dated XXXXXX, I welcome your decision not to pursue a claim against me for alleged damage to a room I stayed in, but note this is due to a lack of corroborative evidence only. You will appreciate that your statement of “not sufficient information to uphold this claim” still concerns me that this has besmirched my good character. This therefore does not satisfy my original rebuttal of your accusation that I have caused damage, and I would wish for you to issue an unequivocal withdrawal of any blame or implied blame that can be attributed to me. Furthermore, I request that you disclose to me all of the information you hold on me as an individual under the Data Protection Act 1998, within no more than 40 calendar days from receipt of this request. In the meantime I look forward to your timely response, Yours faithfully 2nd Response from Travelodge This is what I received back from their CEO office: Dear Mr XXXXX, Thank you for your reply. I can confirm that due to an administrative error this claim was incorrectly logged against your room. We do have robust procedures and policies in place and we will ensure that this will not happen again in the future. In light of the circumstances and in order to restore your good faith in us we would like to offer you compensation in the form of an evoucher to the value of £50.00. In order for me to issue this to you I would kindly ask that you create a MyTravelodge account via the following link and inform me once this is done I have asked my colleague to begin the process of the data request you have asked for. He will be in touch with you in due course regarding this. I would like to thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and would like to offer my further apologies for any inconvenience caused. Thank you again for contacting us. Kind regards Travelodge Customer Services -C.E.O's Office Response from CRS In addition to the above I received a short and sweet letter from CRS saying they were dropping the claim following instruction from Travelodge. SUMMARY I hope the above helps someone. I appreciate Travelodge’s final response was far from perfect, but obviously my main goal was to ensure the claim against me was dropped and no false statement was logged against my customer account, which I feel I have achieved, thanks in most part to advice on here. It does seem particularly worrying that they are sending out lots of similar letters to other people. I have no idea if it’s fraud or what, but I’m just glad I was able to resolve the situation. Anyone that wishes to take it further has my backing and support, but due to the time factors and hassle involved I won’t be doing this myself. I hope people don’t think that’s a lazy approach on my part, it’s just I really do have a lot going on at the minute that is far more important, despite my feelings towards the unacceptable behaviour of both Travelodge and CRS. Good luck to anyone that pursues this further. Scream

Thanks Numbers, sorry late response I've not been online much/

Thanks N, I appreciate your comments. I did find it quite concerning though, that if you like you suggested, they took payment from my card without authorisation. I do appreciate that establishments deserve to be reimbursed for unlawful damage caused by guests, but if, hyperthetically, they had taken the £400 from my card, and if like you suggest above I would have had a struggle to get it back, it just doesn't seem fair or substantiated. I would have thought it was only fair to contact the person who has allegedly caused damage at the earliest opportunity and give them the opportunity to review such damage and defend themselves, as opposed to getting damage repaired and then charging them, when theres no evidence to suggest it was them. It all seems very wrong to me. Surely, if this is hotels intentions, they should adopt a checking in and out policy by where the guest is walked around the room at check in and again at check out to check that everything is as it should be and that signatures are obtained, signing off successful departure, similar to those checks carried out by hire car companies where they walk around the car with you at the time of hire and return. What is the best way to protect myself in the future? Presumably, the only thing I can do is exactly as I've described above, and thats ask a hotel member to walk around the room with me on departure and ask them to provide me with a receipt? I appreciate the time you've taken to respond to my post though, it's incredibly kind to give up some of your time in helping others resolve problems like mine. Many thanks

Thanks for your advice BankFodder, I have drafted a letter in response to their claim. I was also going to complain to Travelodge, for such an appaling way to treat a customer. Do you think I should send them a copy of the letter I am sending to CRS or not bother? What do you think the chances are of this ending up in Court? £400 is a lot of money to me and I'm worried about the costs of defending myself if the unlikley happened, and also how I can prove or disprove that I didn't do any damage to the room? Thanks again

Thanks dx, I have now done this. Kind regards

Hi, I’m hoping someone may be able to offer me some advice / assistance. This morning I received an unpleasant letter from a company called Civil Recovery Solutions (CRS) who are acting on behalf of their client (Travelodge Hotels Limited), relating to an alleged incident that occurred during one of my stays on 11th May 2012, which resulted in damage to a wall. They claim the damage is for £400, and that I either need to pay this within 14 days, or write to them denying liability within 10 days! There was no damage to my room at all when I stayed, and I am shocked and appalled by the letter I’ve received, which is very ‘bullish’ to read! I have since stayed with the same hotel since May 11th, and not one member of Travelodge’s team has mentioned any damage, nor has Travelodge been in contact with me directly, despite having all of my contact details. I don’t know what the damage is as they have failed to elaborate or provide a cost breakdown, nor its location, other than it’s to a ‘wall’. This letter has come completely out of the blue, and as a total shock. All I know is, I can’t afford to pay £400 for something that I never did, nor am I willing to do so. Obviously I will defend myself; I just don’t know how to go about it. How do I prove or disprove such allegations? Surely it’s going to be my word against theirs?? How do I know a) the damage occurred, b) it was in my room, c) it wasn’t done after my departure, or even d) that it already existed before I stayed but I didn’t notice it (they haven’t confirmed which wall the damage occurred to or its extent!). I was proposing to reply in writing denying the claim, and request photographic evidence of the damage, but I’m not sure if this is the correct response? Should I also contact the hotel I stayed at directly to query the whole incident? I also feel that I should write to Travelodge head office for such an appalling way to treat a customer! I noticed some similar posts on this Forum, but they were all relating to Smoking in Rooms, not damage to property, so I’m unsure of the best approach to this. Thanks in advance for reading my post and any advice you may be able to offer, Kind regards

Hi, did anything ever happen to your civil claim Gazzaboy? I've just received a similar letter, but this claims I've done damage to a wall totalling £400, which is just crazy! I've also stayed at this hotel numerous times, and I've stayed there since the alleged damage happened, and not a single person from Travelodge has mentioned it!! Did you just ignore it and they went away? any advice would be greatly appreciated. Kind regards