Not sure how to proceed

Write your review and state the facts: "Left your purse in the room and when you returned XX amount of money was missing and door was unlocked upon return".

Even if they did reimburse you later - would that change the fact that money was missing from your purse.

Next time put your belongings in the safe where it should always be.

Tim, I totally agree that my daughter should not have left her purse in the room. She is still young and not yet so security conscious (she will be now!). The quinta had safes but just a big hole where the lock would be, so they must have removed them. Not very helpful.

It's totally fair to report the facts as you have stated them.

It's entirely possible that the theft was opportunistic. Someone may have been outside of the room waiting for housekeeping to forget to lock the door. That said, the door was left unlocked which is a huge security risk. I'm glad you only lost money. It could have been assault or something worse.

A safe without a lock is also a big problem. That's a second security issue.

And it appears that the Quinta is going at the problem wrong. It is less about finding the thief and more about correcting the issues that caused the security breach in the first place. Reimbursing you doesn't fix the root problem.

Barbara, I really hope you receive reimbursement. Realistically I doubt that will happen because, as you stated, it's a "he said / she said" type thing without any proof at all of what really happened . I think you did the ethical thing by reporting it to them without demanding reimbursement because they can't address a problem unless they know they have a problem. Even so, they may never be able to ascertain who took the money. Personally, I'd never write a bad review because an incident occurred that was entirely my daughter's fault. The quinta did not leave the purse unattended and thus did not provide the opportunity for the theft to occur. As hard as it may be to accept, perhaps the best way to proceed is to simple chalk it up as one of your daughters' expensive life lessons. Hopefully she'll not have many of them -- and the bright side is that it could have been even more costly.

Again blame the victim and not the perpetrator. I have left money, passports, cameras, computers, etc in hotel rooms all over the world and never have had a problem. I do not use the safes as it is more likely that I would leave something there and, any way, the hotel staff knows how to open them.

....It is all not so cut and dried......

That says it all. If you have proof then go after them. If you don't, then you cannot. Reverse the situation, someone visits you in your home, money is missing, are you automatically guilty?

Where was the purse the hour before it was left in the room? Absolutely certain the money was in the purse? Reason I am being a little harsh is that we had a very similar situations years ago with a sister-in-law who was traveling. Had three thousand dollars in a purse, in a motel room, money goes missing, everyone accused of stealing the money, police involved, motel involved, big, big mess, very hard feelings because she was convinced that a family member had taken it. Three weeks later she is unpacking at home and finds the money in the lining of the suitcase. Only then did she remember that she had put the money there for save keeping. In the haste to go to dinner that night, she thought at the last minute to hide the money and forgot. So is it just possible that money disappeared earlier, maybe wasn't there, got put somewhere else.

It is really not fair to accuse or even to hint unless you are sure they are responsible. I think you have to let this one go.

Stupid question but is she 100% sure the money was in the purse when she left it? I'm asking because a pickpocketing on the street/in a restaurant is more likely than hotel room theft. So if she had the purse walking in a crowded area, went back to the hotel, and left the purse to go to the tasting...it is possible the money vanished somewhere other than in the room?

I agree it's a he-said she-said situation...but the door should never have been left unlocked by the hotel in the first place. Regardless of theft. So I would leave THAT comment in a bad review, that the hotel is lax with room security. You can't prove who stole the money, but the room being left unlocked is unacceptable. You can easily say that without accusing anyone of theft (because it could be staff, another guest, or as I said above, pickpockets earlier in the day).

Well, I would do the following:

• Write a certified letter to this den of thieves and cutthroats
• Indicate that you lost the money
• Indicate as well that you want the money back, and that you want the thief - the housekeeper - fired
• If they do not do this, you will publicize them and the name of their den of thieves on every travel site possible

I agree with others that you need to be sure of your facts. But this is not acceptable, and is uncommon in my opinion.

This is one reason we always account, every night, for all money we have. We enter all expenses in a spreadsheet, and then reconcile against cash on hand. That helps us recollect things we forgot to enter. If you have good records, it will strengthen your case.

Ummm? Beyond the possibility of an earlier pickpocket event, this is the part that begs questions for me.

The timeline is confusing, but that may be because I don't do wine tastings, have no idea how long they last or what time of day they happen.

"... my daughter found money ($150 euros) missing from her purse. She had left her purse in their room while we were wine tasting downstairs at the quinta."

What time was the wine tasting?

"When her husband returned to the room, he found it unlocked."

Was it locked when she dropped off the purse?
Who left it unlocked?

"The housecleaners had been there, because the room was tidy."

Was the room tidy when she dropped off the purse?
Did housekeeping clean during the wine tasting?

It's easy for me to see how this could be a disputed issue without more specific details.

Agree with Frank that you have to just let it go. Unless she saw and counted the money immediately before leaving the room, it could have gone missing anywhere. I found money on the floor at the airport, a week later my husband found a 20 while crossing the street in the rain. A couple weeks after that I found a five in a hotel. Then the finding streak ended. Things happen.

If the room had a safe but the lock was missing, it might have been a good idea to ask management for another safe. But that is beside the point. The point is that due to carelessness, forgetfulness, inexperience (choose one) she lost $150. It happens to a lot of us. We lose or are robbed of money when we travel, though I have to say I have never gone out and left a purse in a hotel room. I trust your daughter takes some responsibility for the loss. As to the question "How to proceed?" ..... chalk it up to experience and a lesson learned for $150. The money is gone.

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful (and varied!) comments. I also think it was most likely an opportunistic theft, perhaps another guest, given that the quinta only has two room cleaners and they've been with the hotel for some time. In a rural area with so little employment, it seems unlikely anyone would risk their regular job for a few euros. And although reimbursement would be nice, I agree that it's not likely to happen without any proof. We have not even requested it for that reason. But I disagree with the notion that the quinta was faultless. You can minimize your risk of theft, but that does not absolve the hotel from the basic responsibility of keeping your room locked. Their lax security is a significant issue.

Reporting the missing money in the review is problematic. We enjoyed the quinta so much before that happened that I might have given it 5 stars. But to rate it so highly and then say, oh, by the way, this thing happened so I have to take away a couple of stars, is pretty awkward. And reporting the theft that occurred on their property may be enough to keep some travelers away, which I'm not very comfortable with either. But what if this has happened before at this hotel? If it is reported, then people can make up their own minds about it. If not reported, then it can happen again, and then that could be my fault, at least in a karma sort of way.

But I am haunted by the possibility that there is some other explanation for the missing money. We looked through everything, in all of our bags, and we and the hotel went through the room with a fine toothed comb. There is no way to be 100% sure, and you could argue that it's all circumstantial. We were out in the country - no pickpockets. We were only at breakfast that morning. My husband and I paid for dinner the previous night, so she still had her money then. And then there is the unlocked door and the money gone when we returned to the room. So the dilemma is, I would feel terrible if somehow we were wrong and the hotel got blamed unfairly. I would also feel very badly if someone else did get ripped off in the future. But how can I know which is the right course? The reality is that I can't, I don't have enough information.

I'm leaning toward reviewing the positives of the quinta and then stating the security issues - unlocked door, non-working safe - without discussing the incident. Do you think that is the right thing to do? Thanks so much for providing a sounding board so I can work my way through this!

The quinta did not leave the purse unattended and thus did not provide the opportunity for the theft to occur.

The quinta left the door unlocked. They absolutely contributed to the theft through negligence. The fact that there was no lockable safe also is on the quinta.

I am a single woman that often travels alone. Leaving my room door unlocked would be a deal breaker for me.

FWIW, to answer the question of timeline...
At about 1pm, she leaves for the wine tasting downstairs and locks the door, leaving the purse inside. The room is at that point unmade. An hour or two later, after the wine tasting, her husband comes up to find the door unlocked and the room made up. The purse is still in the room but he does not look in it. At dinner that evening, she pulls out her wallet and finds the money missing. There were no pickpockets in this rural area, and even if there were, they would have taken the whole wallet not just money inside the wallet. We looked all around the table in case the bills had fallen out, but nothing. She checked her pockets etc etc. Anyway, as I said, this is all circumstantial.

Also, in response to a different point, neither of our rooms had working safes, both had had the locks removed. Their website did advertise safes in the rooms. This is something I may double check with the hotel before writing the review.

I cannot think of any hotel or other lodging that takes responsibility for guests' belongings.

I see your dilemma. I might write a review and say that although the hotel advertised an in-room safe, you had two rooms in which it was not possible to secure the safe. I might not mention the money, since it does sound like an accusation without proof.

Or just pass on writing this review.

Barbara,
With regard to "...leaning toward reviewing the positives...stating the security issues - unlocked door, non-working safe - without discussing...", that appears to be a prudent and ethical way to review your stay. Keep in mind, however, that the staff might not have left the door open. It might have been left open by someone else - namely the one who took the money - and for that the hotel would be blameless. There really isn't any way, based on what has been posted, to know who left it open. Even good, modern locks are not that hard to pick and the one on that door may have been quite old and easy to unlock.

So to sum up: You have no actual evidence of wrong doing, you did not report it to the police and now you are going to threaten them with or make a bad review....

Under those circumstances in most of Europe, the hotel owners would be fully within then their rights to make a formal complaint to the police of criminal activity. And given that you never made it official, they may take it seriously, meaning that they could list you on the Schengen system as a person of interest.

My advice, let it go and if it ever happens again follow the correct procedure - report the issue to the police as you should have done in the first place.

Hmmm, that's a really good point, TC. I think all of us, including the quinta, were assuming the housekeeper left the door unlocked. You're quite right, the lock could have been picked and the door left unlocked afterwards. That does complicate matters, and I can't complain about the door being unlocked if it were a professional thief who took the money.

The irony is that the major reason I'm determined to submit this review is that the quinta is very hard to find. It is in a relatively remote rural area up in the hills. I had read a review beforehand that noted that "your GPS takes you a weird way" to get there, but without further specifics. Our GPS directed us up a near-vertical, narrow dirt road where we almost burned out our clutch and finally had to turn around. We subsequently found the correct way to go, and I wanted to put those directions in the review so others would not destroy their cars trying to reach the hotel!

My review will consist of directions and little else at this rate... but so be it. All I want is to do the right thing, and this one's been a toughie.

Where was dinner that evening when you discovered the money missing? How does the daughter handle her purse? Over the back of the chair? At her feet? etc?? Where was lunch??

Dinner the evening prior was in a small local restaurant in a small town near where we were staying in the Douro Valley. My husband and I paid for the dinner. We all paid for dinners with credit cards. I have never noticed what our daughter does with her purse when she eats. I am always the careful one who eats with my purse in my lap, and she definitely is not as careful as that (few people are, I'm a little obsessive on that score). We had lunch at the quinta, and they charged it to our room.

I would have been surprised if an opportunistic petty thief would take the time and risk to remove the bills from the wallet instead of just taking the wallet. But maybe that's inaccurate, maybe they really are that good! Anyway, I agree that it's important to keep an open mind on all possibilities.

Sorry, Frank, I misread your question. Dinner when she discovered the money missing was at a restaurant in a rural area relatively far from the quinta.

We will probably never know what happened to the money. At least it was only money.

That is a very sad story about your sister-in-law. Terrible that so many relationships were seriously harmed before she found the money. So yes, it's important to keep an open mind.

The unlocked door is the fishy part, obviously you know the house cleaners had been there since the room had been tidied up, clean, etc

The problem is that you don't know if the house cleaner was the only person in your room, assuming that 150 Euro was in the purse all the time and had not been " picked" earlier. Who left the door unlocked? The house cleaner or an intruder? The house cleaner could have been remiss in leaving the door that way but still didn't touch the purse, which could have been done by an intruder who discovered an unlocked door with a purse with cash inside.

You just opened up a couple of other opportunities for the money to disappear. Good pick pockets are that good and they are not just in the cities. Restaurants are a good opportunity since you are already distracted with food, conversation, and are not moving. Number of postings are here where the money was removed and the billfold replaced. If she was careless with an pursue over the back of the chair, it could easily be hit. Our daughter-in-law was hit exactly that way in New York city. It could well have been the hotel but there were so many other opportunities that I don't think you can fix the blame on anyone. Most hotels don't have problems with hotel theft by staff simply because four or five times and the word gets out.

In the end everyone just rolled their eyes at my sister-in-law. After 30+ years we got use to her jumping off the deep end. We have had other extreme behaviors in the past. I was certain it hadn't been stolen by family since I don't think anyone knew she had it. We had a hotel room broken into a couple of decades ago so knew that was a possibility. I have joked about wearing my money belt in the shower but it is rarely far from me. Same for my wife.

Put the experience in the "Well, That Sucks" file and move on. There's not really anything you can do about it now. I'm sorry. Don't let it ruin your memories of the trip.

you won't be able to mention the alleged thefts on Trip Advisor as it happened to your daughter if it happened at all.
Saying that your daughter was subject to theft would be considered hearsay and would be against TA's posting guidelines.
I think this is something that your daughter needs to deal with not you it is her and her husband's problem to deal with ,let them deal with it.

I must disageee with so many posters, who are seeing this problem as a theft issue.

The true issue is a security issue, from unlocked doors to safes that don't work.

The money is inconsequential. But others having access to my room? A huge deal. Especially if I were coming back to my room later in the evening.

Some say that maybe someone picked the lock. That is still a security issue.

This is not a theft issue. It is a personal safety issue.

The back story for this discussion is actually that I wanted to write a review of this quinta to help people avoid wrecking their cars on a particularly hazardous dirt road that appears to lead to the quinta. This goal was complicated by the supposed "theft" situation that I described, which was at the time unresolved. So my concern when I started this thread was really more how to ethically and responsibly write the review of the quinta. We had already ruled out any requests for remuneration. I could have just dropped it at that point but I really wanted to correct the driving directions, plus I was very concerned about whether I had an ethical responsibility to "warn" others of a potential security problem, as indeed it looked like at that point. (Even the quinta seemed to think they may have left the door unlocked.) However, as this thread progressed, it became obvious that there were far too many possibilities to blame the quinta without further evidence, and it would be unethical not to protect their reputation. Therefore my review will say nothing at all about this issue, nor will I let it affect my rating of the place, which is between 4 and 5 stars. I will review the quinta as I would any other and give the correct directions to it, as I had initially planned. And then, as several of you have suggested, I will drop it and let it be a learning experience for our daughter.

I am grateful to this forum for being a sounding board in working through the issues, and thank everyone who shared their viewpoints. I am happy with the resolution.

Cindy, I agree with you completely that such a security lapse would be a serious safety issue. That was initially my view of this quinta and cause of my dilemma. But now I am rethinking all of the "evidence." Could my SIL have been mistaken about the door being unlocked? It is he said/she said, and that is not evidence. Given that it cannot be proven what actually happened, I can't accuse the quinta of the security lapse with the door. My review will mention the lack of working safes in our rooms, though, that is a fact.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful posts.

For me, I write it off as a security breach on my part - another dumb thing I did on a trip that cost me money. Losing some money isn't the worst thing that can happen on a trip.

If I think of all the dumb things I've done where I should have lost money and didn't, overall I'm ahead of the game.

Barbara, I think you have come to the correct decision and solution. It is always easy to second guess what happen, should have happen, could have happen. For everyone else, this simply drives home the point that you have to be careful no matter how safe you feel. We have never lost anything - maybe a hat or two -- of importance but we try to be very very careful.