16. Sep 2015
This lady “certainly came to the wrong place”: this is the only thing on which we agree.
Unfortunately she wants to exaggerate over everything: funishing, road, etc, listing a series of lies that can be easily disproved by pictures and reviews. This makes you understand how little she has been objective and has allowed herself to give judgment in writing on the behavior of the person. A slight fall in style for who like this lady ”has made 200 trips and is worldly-wise”…Who now threatens to resolve the entire question with lawyers, (for 50 Euro??) which does not give me pleasure, but it is her free choice ,at least like this we can finally clarify the facts, I remain in waiting.
However to clarify some information for the benefit of those who read this review, I would like to say that I have worked for many years in this business , I love my house and have great respect for my guests. I do not believe I could have achieved all this with an attitude “bad-tempered” and “rude” as the lady refers. The reviews of all my guests of 5 stars tell a very different reality.
Even the review to which the lady refers is not negative , it spoke of the exceptional heat that the television had reported as “the hottest summer for 130 years”. But she has reported that in the house it is fine. Even this lady had placed the thermostat at 5 but when I advised to reposition it to 2, she listened to the advice and and she can see that the fridge worked. Indeed she gave the valuation of 5 stars, maximum points.
This is how the events evolved:
Saturday 4 July: early afternoon the guests arrived. As always and as I do with all my guests I greeted them with a homemade cake, gave them the keys and all useful information. I offered them my utmost in case of any problems and wished them a lovely holiday.
Saturday evening shortly after their arrival they advised me there was a problem with the fridge. I asked them if they had touched the thermostat and when they confirmed that they had , I asked them to return it from 5 to 2/3 as it was upon their arrival.
Sunday morning: The guests were very impatient and threatened to leave the house because the fridge was not working. I was out for the day with my family but we came back 80km to resolve the problem. To find a technician on a Sunday afternoon in summer is not an easy task but after an hour of trying I found one and at 4pm I was at the villa with the technician.
We opened the fridge: it was overflowing with bottles, food, tin cans, butter and ice cream…etc, even though the thermostat was set at the unadvisable level , all the food was perfectly cold and the ice cream frozen. The technician explained to me that upon their arrival the guests had overfilled the fridge with food and to cool it down quickly had raised the thermostat believing the fridge would function better. In reality they had obtained the opposite since with extra effort, the motor overheats, and this worse works. Therefore the technician simply changed the thermostat from 5 to 2 as I had advised the previous day. Since the guests were out , I sent them a message to inform them that the fridge was working.
I paid the technician and obviously I would not have attributed any cost to my guests if had the fridge been broken but this was not the case.
Monday morning: I returned to clean the pool as is usual. The guests were satisfied with the fridge but complained that the cistern in one of the four bathrooms took too long to refill.
I called a plumber who arrived in 15 minutes. In fact there was a problem: a small residue of limestone obstructed the tube that drew the water. Problem sorted I said goodbyes to the guests and I did not hear from them for two days.
Wednesday morning: I returned to the villa to clean the pool and to do the water test. At this time I have informed the guests about the refund of € 50 paid to the technician for the fridge since there had been nothing broken and the error it was theirs.
From this moment on they started to ask for their deposit back before they left and they wanted me to go back to the villa with pretexts to discuss. They even threatened me that they would put a negative review which they have elegantly subsequently done.
Thursday and Friday: two days of insistent e-mails and sms to receive the deposit back one day before they left!!!
All agencies retain the deposit for 24 hours after the departure to permit the owner to perform a detailed control of the property. To return it before does not have sense.
But this they knew upon signing the contract. Also the amount of security deposit is specified in the contract and do not been asked more.
Exasperated by this behavior I wrote the following e-mail with the following suggestions since the guests wanted to leave in the early hours of Saturday morning:
“if you want your deposit returned before you leave, it would be possible in this way: leave the property either this morning or Saturday morning and in the afternoon, following a detailed control of the property, I will return to you the deposit. Please let me know your decision . I hope you have a safe journey home”.
This is my contribution to understand the facts and to respond to my supposed “rudeness” . Unfortunately I cannot publish their “polite” e-mails which I will save in case they want to go forward legally.
The reviews are an important means for anyone who travels , unfortunately, as it is for everything, there is always someone who use it inappropriately. I leave it for the reader to judge.
Thank you for attention.
Diese Antwort ist die subjektive Meinung des Managementmitarbeiters und nicht die von TripAdvisor LLC