NASHVILLE, Ind.
(AP) - The former owner of an Indiana hotel is being sued for charging a
woman $350 for posting a negative online review that said there was hair and
dirt on the sheets in her room and other cleanliness issues.
Indiana’s attorney
general’s office contends that Andrew Szakaly violated the state’s deceptive
consumer sales act by charging guests $350 if they posted negative reviews
but didn’t inform management about problems during their stay at the Abbey
Inn & Suites.
Indiana’s suit,
filed Dec. 15, seeks a reimbursement for the guest, Katrina Arthur, and a
court order barring the southern Indiana hotel from maintaining and
enforcing such a policy, which it calls “unfair, abusive, and deceptive.”
Arthur said she and
her husband stayed for one day in March 2016 at the hotel that abuts Brown
County State Park in the rustic tourist town of Nashville. When they
arrived, their room was unclean, without a functioning air conditioner and
had other issues, she said.
“It was a
nightmare,” the Solsberry, Indiana, woman told WRTV-TV. “The room was
unkempt, and it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the last people
stayed there. We checked the sheets and I found hairs and dirt.”
Indiana’s lawsuit
says Arthur had not seen the hotel’s review policy online and she wasn’t
provided with a copy of it during her stay. It contends Arthur tried to
complain about the room’s condition while staying at the inn, but no
employee was on-site and her calls to an after-hours telephone number went
unanswered.
When Arthur checked
out of the hotel, there was no one at the front desk she could complain to,
the suit says.
After Arthur
received an email from the hotel asking her to leave an online review of her
stay, she posted her review “recounting the issues she encountered,” the
complaint says. On April 2, 2016, it alleges she received a letter from
Szakaly saying her “false statements” had harmed the business and demanding
she remove the review within one week or face legal action for libel, the
state’s suit says.
A few days later,
her credit card was charged $350 because of the negative review, it says.
She filed a complaint with the state attorney general’s office on April 21,
2016.
Szakaly said in a
statement Wednesday that he is president and sole shareholder of Abbey
Management Inc., but has not operated the 14-room Nashville hotel since
January 2017, when new owners assumed control of the inn.
Szakaly said that
between fall 2015 and summer 2016 the hotel had the review policy under
which Arthur was charged. That policy was a response to hotel guests
checking out without making any complaints during their stay and then
demanding a refund or posting negative comments and reviews on social media,
he said.
“It’s a shame that
the actions of a disgruntled guest, taken 22 months ago, will now damage the
hard work & devotion of the new, young management couple who had nothing to
do with that guest or that policy which has long since been cancelled,” he
said.
Amanda Sweet, the
hotel’s current owner-operator with her husband, said Wednesday they were
taken “completely by surprise” by news of the lawsuit stemming from
Szakaly’s alleged actions as their predecessor. She said she and her husband
took over ownership in January 2017 and do not have a policy that charges
guests if they make negative reviews.
Since the lawsuit
was filed against Szakaly, however, she said the hotel has faced “hundreds
of trolls who’ve taken over all our review sites” and she’s also received
threatening phone calls.
“It’s been a
horrible 24 hours for us,” Sweet said. “We’ve been pouring ourselves into
making positive renovations, bringing this beautiful building back to life.
This is our livelihood and we don’t want it to go away.”