A teenager who paid £1,000 for a working holiday says she was given an apartment ‘littered with used condoms’ and told to clean it when she complained.
Seasonal worker Portia Nancarrow claims the flat in Zante had no lock on the door and one night she had to chase a stranger out of it after she awoke to find him sitting on her bed saying ‘s**g me’.
The 19-year-old flew out last Thursday after booking with Workers Family, who promised her ‘memories that will last a lifetime’.
But she was told to ‘get off her lazy fat a*** and clean’ up the mess by manager Mitch Hodson after she complained of a broken bed and rotten fridge.
The 19-year-old (pictured) slammed Workers Family after her disappointing break in Zante
Ms Nancarrow was furious with her accommodation (pictured, an unmade bed at the apartment in Zante)
The teenager said the apartment featured a smashed bed (left) and a broken fridge (right) but was told to clean up the mess by the apartment’s management
Aimed at ‘young people wanting to escape the UK and have an amazing summer’, the packages are supposed to include accommodation maintained by a cleaner and help to find work.
Appalled at the conditions in the ‘filthy’ flat, she flew home two days later and complained to Workers Holidays that she felt the trip had been missold.
However she was met with a barrage of abuse in response to her requests for a refund, with one manager appearing to brand her a ‘malaka’ – Greek for ‘w**ker’.
When she described the condition of her room, the manager appears to have suggested he would have ‘got [off his] lazy fat a*** and cleaned the f***ing apartment’.
Portia Nancarrow (pictured, left) shared pictures of her apartment (right) online, saying that she didn’t even have a lock on her door
This is some of the filth that Ms Nancarrow complained about in her Facebook post to Workers Family
Even after her attempts to tidy and clean the room, she claims it was still covered in ‘filth’, which she captured on camera afterward.
Ms Nancarrow is hoping to warn other young women to be careful when planning to work abroad.
Tony Furnival, one of the directors at Workers Family, admitted that it was ‘the lowest standard of accommodation’ that was ‘not fit for tourists’ – but said the workers should expect that.
The teenager said she was terrified one night when she found a stranger sitting on her bed
He admitted there were faults on their part however denied that Portia did not have access to pillows or that used condoms would have been left around.
Ms Nancarrow, from Ebbw Vale, Wales, said: ‘It was actually disgusting. I thought I was big and tough before I went out there but now I realise I’m not. When I first got there they put me in this accommodation [above a takeaway].
‘There were four beds that were already taken up. I had to ring one of the reps and he moved me upstairs.
‘This new room they put me in was stinking. It was unreal. When you went in, all the doors had holes in them from where people had been fighting.
‘There was a smashed up bed all over the floor, rubbish everywhere, the floor was stinking. I took my shoes off for two seconds and my feet were black. Nothing had been cleaned. The fridge was so rotten you couldn’t even open it.
‘All the bed was broken and that had to be chucked outside. They left that on the balcony.
‘When they lifted the bed up, this girl didn’t want me to see it but she was picking used condoms up with her hands. The toilet had poo all down the back of it and stunk the bathroom out.
‘The showers – you wouldn’t even have those in prison. It was a little sink thing that you stand in and wash yourself.
‘In my room there were three of us but just two beds. In the room above me there were five boys and three beds.
‘The mattresses were all dirty – it looked like mud. We didn’t have pillows either. It was only by chance that I took my own love heart pillow on the plane.
‘I said to the rep that none of us had pillows and he said ‘there’s nothing we can do about that – there’s another 50 people waiting for them’. We’d spent all this money and they didn’t give me a pillow.’
After complaining to the staff, Portia claims she was initially told to clean the apartment herself but when she refused, another season worker was paid £20 to do it.
One evening after a night out, she reportedly woke to find an unknown man sat on the edge of her bed.
She said: ‘I was in on my own. They told me I’d have to clean it myself. I kicked off. I said I don’t see why I should. I’d paid all that money to come and they were telling me to clean the room.
‘They got another [season worker] in there to clean it. She was just staying in the accommodation like me and they paid her £20.
‘The first night my door was open because there was no air-con. This man walked into my room, sat on to my bed and said ‘sh*g me’. This was a stranger.
‘I was screaming at him to get out and I didn’t see him after that. For all they know something could have happened to me. They get your money, send you over there then that’s it.’
Ms Nancarrow saw Workers Family and its partner WorkersRooms advertised online. After paying for her flights, accommodation and membership, she was on her way to the Greek party island within weeks.
Pictured, an exchange online between Ms Nancarrow and Workers Family manager Mitch Hodson that followed her complaint
Portia said: ‘When I was messaging the bosses, they were making it out to be stress-free. I just needed to pay and it would be sorted. The accommodation I was in was not the one they said they’d put me in.
‘On the first night they arranged a night out for all the reps to go. When I came back my door was open and there was someone else asleep on my bed, who probably worked there. The door didn’t even lock. I was like “what’s going on?”
‘Some people were sleeping and they didn’t care – but I did. They said “that’s what we do out there. We all sleep with each other”. That’s not what I went for.
‘It was my birthday out there as well, but that second night I didn’t go out. I just booked my flight home.
‘I paid a £50 deposit which I asked to have back, but one of the reps said “well you’ve not given us seven days’ notice”.
‘I paid £600 for the accommodation, then I had to pay £60 for membership, my flight was £230, then when I got there I had to pay a £50 deposit. All that to go there for just two days [in the end].’
Ms Nancarrow branded the company ‘unprofessional’ after exchanges such as this on social media following her complaint
After reaching out twice to three members of staff, the teenager claims she received no reply after getting her money back.
‘Two of the bosses replied to me online going nuts – it’s so unprofessional,’ she said. ‘They looked so childish. I’ve never seen anything like it to be honest. I’m gobsmacked.
‘It was hard for me to take photos when I first arrived there because there were head reps in there.
‘If I’d have gone around taking photos of the room they wouldn’t have put me in accommodation at all.
‘Those photos of the room are after we tried to clean it. It’s a lot of money to pay when I could have had a couple of weeks on holiday having a nice time.
‘I went out on my own and I think that’s why they took advantage. The whole experience was awful.
‘They’ve massively done me over. They’ve taken all of that money that I could have spent on something else. My nan and dad paid for it – that’s what’s even worse. They were really worried.’
Workers Family claimed that Portia paid only £460 for her accommodation, not £600.
Antony Ross, one of the directors of Workers Family, said: ‘Mitch Hodson is not employed by us, he’s freelance. He’s not an employee of ours.’
However Mitch Hodson lists himself as business management at Workers Family on his social media and is one of the admins on their Facebook group.
Mitch said: ‘All us workers in every resort are one big family the wages aren’t great unless you work really hard but it’s more then enough to live off and also living conditions aren’t as bad as made out you share a room with three other people and if you keep it clean it’s perfect. I said I would [have] got off MY fat ass and cleaned and not her fat ass.’
Tony Furnival, another director at Workers Family, said: ‘The broken wardrobe, that’s pretty bad. That should have been fixed.
‘As regards bunk-beds, it’s hostel-style accommodation. You might as well take a picture of any hostel across the world.
‘If it is dirty, that’s the people that are living there. It’s hostel-style accommodation that they’re responsible for.
‘There is cleaning to a degree [by cleaners]. Because it’s the end of the season there are so many places she could have been moved.
‘I don’t want you thinking for one second that I’m saying nothing she’s said is true, but these young people get the lowest standard of accommodation.
‘It’s not good enough for year round people, it’s not good enough for tourists.
‘These claims that people are going out there is so far from what I know to be true, that I’m a bit offended.
‘I wasn’t there on that day so these things about a lad going in the room, I can’t lie and say I was there. But it’s shared accommodation.
‘We’ve been doing this a lot of years and while there’s various complaints come about, the way she’s described it if this was as such a length as she said, do you not think it would be a national scandal?
‘There were faults on our part, but the way it’s been painted, it’s really over the top. When these people are told that it’s basic accommodation, they know to expect that.
‘Some of the things she’s said could have been dealt with better, but the general premises of what she’s said is just not true – having no pillows, used condoms. It’s just not true.
‘Everyone is out there getting on with their season having a good time. It’s human nature that mistakes get made.
‘It’s a nice environment for these young people. It’s why they keep going out there and doing it.
‘But I don’t think we’ve had enough time to do anything about this before the Facebook post came out.
‘She paid us £460. Maybe the whole trip cost more than that but I can only comment on what she paid us.
‘I just would have loved personally for this to get to me. The email got forwarded on to me within a short time of the post. Any negligence has not been truly horrific.’
Antony Ross also pointed out that there were many positive reviews on their page, including one that reads: ‘Workers Family have looked after me and hundreds of my friends for summer after summer.
‘Agreed that room looks a state but that’s one in a hundred and it’s probably down to some p***heads ruining the room.
‘Don’t blame the company, blame the muppet wannabe workers who probably ruined that room.’