A grandmother says she was kicked out of a Georgia hotel by police in the middle of the night after she left a bad review online, forcing her and her six year-old granddaughter to walk to an nearby hotel in their pajamas.
Susan Leger, 63, was on the first of her three-night stay at the Baymont Inn & Suites in the mountain town of Helen, Georgia in September when she got a call from the hotel manager telling her she had to leave.
It came shortly after booking site Hotels.com asked her to leave a review post-check-in. Leger did, branding the property ‘run down’. She also complained that her room’s toilet did not flush properly and that the pool was closed.
‘My granddaughter’s like clinging to my leg and crying so hard. This was scary. This was just horrifying,’ Leger told WXIA.
Police then showed up to remove her and her 6-year-old grandchild, writing in a report that management wanted her out because she ‘had given the hotel a bad review.’
Susan Leger, 63, and her six-year-old granddaughter were kicked out of a hotel in September
Manager Danny Vyas, above, called 911 on her and said: ‘I told them, ma’am, we are going to refund your money because I know that you didn’t like the room and you have reviewed us’
‘My granddaughter’s like clinging to my leg and crying so hard. This was scary. This was just horrifying,’ Leger recalled
Leger first got a call from manager Danny Vyas at 8.40pm.
‘The man is screaming at me. He was saying, “You get out now. I call the police,'” Leger said.
She says the manager told her: ‘You get out … You lie, you lie. You gave me bad review.’
‘And I’m just sitting there going, “Oh my gosh, is this a prank call?'” Leger said.
Vyas cited Leger’s review in his calls to police, promising a refund that Leger says she did not get until reporters contacted Hotels.com
The Baymont Inn, where rates start at $76 a night, did not respond to calls and emails requesting comment from DailyMail.com.
Leger was ordered out after responding to an email from booking site Hotels.com asking, ‘How’s your room?’
She gave three out of five stars, writing that the accommodations were, ‘rundown. Pool’s not open. Toilet doesn’t flush well.’
She did not know that reviews are forwarded to management during a guest’s stay.
‘So, the only way to keep the room, in my mind, is not to have answered Hotels.com’s request,’ Leger said.
Leger said she and her granddaughter had to leave the Baymont Inn & Suites, above, in the mountain town of Helen, Georgia in the middle of the night in their pajamas
Leger said the Baymont was ‘rundown’ and that the toilet didn’t flush. An Atlanta TV station found trash in the room and faulty light fixtures. Above, a room at the hotel
The incident happened after she left a negative review. ‘So, the only way to keep the room, in my mind, is not to have answered Hotels.com’s request,’ Leger, above, said
‘If you don’t want to be walking in your pajamas with your 6-year-old granddaughter, don’t leave a review if you’re currently still at the place.’
In 911 audio obtained by WXIA, Vyas explicitly references Leger’s review as the reason why he wanted her out.
He told a dispatcher: ‘Yeah, we are getting ready to refund because they have reviewed that the room is dirty and the place is rundown.
‘I told them, ma’am, we are going to refund your money because I know that you didn’t like the room and you have reviewed us. So we have all the right that you can leave the place and we are going to refund in full.’
Leger then heard a loud knock at the door.
‘And then I hear, literally, “Bam, bam, bam!”‘ Leger said, opening the hotel door to an officer from the Helen Police Department.
‘They can truly kick me out in the middle of the night, from a hotel for giving a review of three and five?’ Leger asked the police officer. ‘And he says, “Yes, ma’am. It’s within the law.”‘
Georgia law says guests can’t be kicked out before the time they paid for runs out, but it carves out an exemption for ’cause,’ defined as ‘failure to pay sums due, failure to abide by rules of occupancy, failure to have or maintain reservations, or other action by a guest.’
Leger says she and her granddaughter had to walk a third of a mile down the street to the Fairfield Hotel in their pajamas.
In a police report outlining the reason why, the Helen officer wrote: ‘Leger had given the motel a bad review.’
Reporters from WXIA booked a room at the two-and-a-half-star Baymont. They found a faulty deadbolt, trash under the furniture and bathroom lights that didn’t work.
Stays at the two-and-a-half star hotel start at $76 a night, according to Hotels.com, which only refunded Leger after questions from reporters
Vyas, the manager, told the station back in September that Leger never reported any problems to him or his staff.
‘We can fix that, right? If you let us know, but she never let us know anything,’ he said.
In an interview this month, he reversed his position and told reporters that Leger complained way too much.
‘We let her know lots of times to stop calling us. If you’re not happy, change the room or leave the place,’ he said.
‘They called me at least 10, 11 times in maybe one hour … Everything is not right.’
Leger says she did not receive a refund from Vyas, though he promised to do so and the police department wrote that he had.
She also didn’t get a refund from Hotels.com, with the booking site offering her a ‘coupon’ for a future stay instead. WXIA reports that the website refunded Leger after she asked for comment.
Hotels.com did not respond to requests for comment from DailyMail.com.
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