Report

how to minimise responsibility for theft case?

General Hostel Operations

zomac started this discussion 10 years 8 months ago

In a dorm, a theft case can happen anytime if a guest ditches their alert and common sense.

To minimise our responsibility on it, we've:
1. put a lot of notices on protection on belongings. In a shower room, elevator, communal lounge, room... but we also worried that it may make guests feel panicky.

2. provides guests with a charging locker ( with a power outlet inside) ,

3. free Mul-T-lock like padlock

4. free safe box at the front desk.

5. Free storage room with many big individual big lockers for large suitcases. Surveillance on.

6. Surveillance cameras are installed everywhere, except bathrooms and rooms.

7. each room has a separate electronic lock. it at least limits the number of suspects.

8. when they check in, we brief them about our safety measures again.

9. we submit the ID cards of all the staff to the Police Bureau to make sure that they're clean.

10. cleaning ladies have to have a track record working in a hotel for two years.

Unfortunately, for a year, we've received two theft reports. They claimed that they lost cash or an iPhone when they left their stuff unattended on their beds during showers. While we believed that it was their own faults to ditch their common sense, I waived a small percentage of room charge as a customer caring measure.

However, I'm always wondering if there is any chance that the hostel may take responsibility on theft cases and have to compensate a guest for its loss. How do you minimise the risk in your hostel?

Comments

Report

slushysnow

10 years

Hi Zomac,

Below are a few things we do:

1 - On our registration sheet (with our rules etc) which we ask all guests to read and sign, we have a section saying, "I also understand that The Emperor's Crown is not responsible for the damage or loss of any personal belongings."

2 - Every bed has a locker big enough for a suitcase, which can be locked with a standard padlock. We don't provide the padlocks although we do sell them in our vending machine. Making the guest use a padlock that belongs to them takes away some of the paranoia, whereby a guest could think that we have spare keys cut for padlocks we rent out or something like that.

3 - Nobody who is not staying in a particular room is allowed to be in there. Obviously this cannot be enforced at all times but it does help prevent guests bringing randoms in as we've found that this is when thefts usually occur...

4 - We have both a short-term and long-term luggage room which is free of charge (only if they have a future booking for the long term room). We make guests aware that the storage room is safe, however we don't take any responsibility for items stored there.

5 - We have CCTV covering all our corridors and entrances which I skim through daily. If you don't have CCTV in your place, get it. You would be amazed at how much easier it makes life.

6 - Our cleaning staff are outsourced through a professional cleaning company who vet their staff pretty well.

7 - Guest screening. Possibly the most important thing. I find that you can tell who the troublemakers are as soon as they walk in. All my staff know to refuse beds to anyone they even get the slightest bad feeling about. I'd rather lose some revenue than gain some problems.

8 - Reputation plays a big part. We take a hard line on any trouble and so we seem to get less trouble. Maybe word gets around?

9 - ID from every guest. Passport or Australian Driver's License, no exceptions. People are a lot less reluctant to steal when they know you have their details if they are caught.

10 - Guests can store small personal items in our safe, however I stress to them that I do not take responsibility for the items.

In all honesty, no matter what you do, stuff will be taken, usually when a guest doesn't take the right precautions (lockers are there for a reason).

With regards to avoiding responsibility for theft, I think as long as you get the guests to sign something which states that you don't take responsibility for their belongings, you should be fine.

We haven't had any theft in over a year from our rooms. However, our fridges are a different story. Food gets stolen pretty regularly and with the way our kitchen is laid out I don't see a way to stop it. It's very hard to spot on CCTV if someone is dipping into the wrong bag in the fridge.

I would love some custom made fridges with separate, lockable, compartments for each bed/room!

Report

Rucksack Brian

10 years

Zomac, I think you’ve already covered just about all of your bases. While signing a liability waiver like SlushySnow mentioned probably isn’t a legally binding document, it does have the psychological benefit of reminding your guests to be responsible for their own stuff. With setups like both of yours, if something gets stolen it must be due to negligence rather than lack of security.

That said, as an accommodation provider you may still be legally responsible for stolen items depending on your local laws. I have no idea what the Chinese or Australian regulations say about this. As an example though, in Romania a hostel is liable for the value of any stolen items up to 100 times the posted price of one night in that room, provided that the item was secured in a safe (or that it was left in the care of the hostel, it was stolen by a hostel employee, or it was stolen as a result of an employee's negligence). For this reason all hostels are required to have an insurance policy that is designed for accommodation providers. It covers the cost of stolen items and also covers general civil liability if someone gets injured on site. An insurance policy like that sounds like the last piece in your theft liability puzzle.

Just because I found them interesting, here are some more fun facts about the Romanian laws: the guest has to prove (through witness testimony) that they brought the stolen item into the hostel in the first place before they can make a theft claim. And if a guest fails to pay their bill, the hostel can keep their belongings and sell them off to recover any losses.

Report

zomac

10 years

Brian, it's interesting to know about the rules in Romania. Unfortunately rules are not so clear in China as what i can understand.

In a rural area where police is more powerful, he may make a non legal-blinding decision that a shop should compensate the loss. A shop usually respects the police decision, because their hosteling license is controlled by them. (so the police may also side with a shop, if good relation is built )

In a more developed area, a legal court case may sometimes happen. In one case, a hotel guest was asked to declare all his belongings when checking in and he ticked "nothing to declare". When the guest lost his camera, the court used this as a proof to deny his claim for compensation.

And how to judge the % of responsibility is unclear.

So in our hostel, we put safety notices on every door, give our guests a locker and free padlock, provide almost anything we could imagine to avoid a theft case. If a guest really loses something, and threatens us with a legal action, we'll take it and see what will happen. Lucky enough it never happens until this moment.

Report

zomac

10 years

hi Tom, thanks for your tips. In a kitchen we now request our guests to put their names, room numbers and date of storage on the food. While food theft happens regularly, a very clear label seems to hinder others from taking others' foods. hope it helps.

Report

slushysnow

10 years

Yeah we do this as well but still seem to run into problems.

We're not talking major food theft just small bits here and there but it's annoying and I wish it was something we could cut out.

Search form

Report 'how to minimise responsibility for theft case? '?

Report 'Re: how to minimise responsibility for theft case? '?

Report 'Re: how to minimise responsibility for theft case? '?

Report 'Re: how to minimise responsibility for theft case? '?

Report 'Re: how to minimise responsibility for theft case? '?

Report 'Re: how to minimise responsibility for theft case? '?

Join the world's largest community of hostel professionals.

Check Your Email