Hampton Inn Linden — Hotel in Linden

Dec 29 - Jan1 2023

Had the worst stay possible at this place. Incompetent front desk staff, filthy rooms, dirty running water for 3+ days, maintenance barging into your room after ignoring knocks. Make sure to take pictures before you stay in your room. Paid 500 for a few nights and faced nothing but inconveniences. Complained to hilton and they would not compensate me because the manager BLATANTLY LIED about all of our complaints and said they were untrue. Good thing I got pictures and videos of the place and sent them to my bank so I was able to get my FULL REFUND.

Heres the complaint I filed:

Upon arriving, the running water in the faucet and sink was dirty/brown

We had to let the water run for about 20-30 minutes to get clean water. This occurred every single night/morning.

-On Thursday, Dec 29th, the hotel did not have any running water from the hours of 5pm-12am. They claimed it would only be off until 7pm. After constantly going to the front desk to ask about the water, we were told "we really don't know when it's gonna come back on." I had to check into a different motel just to shower. HUGE inconvenience.

-On Friday, Dec 30th, there was no HOT WATER in the early morning hours (about 4am.) I tested the water every hour. The hot water came on around 12pm. Thats one night with no water, then one morning with no HOT water.

-Maintenance came into my room on 2 separate mornings around 9-10am and spent about 30 minutes hammering, drilling, and making so much noise. (This also had NOTHING to do with the water issues because shortly after they left, we still had no HOT water)

-I complained to the front desk that my air conditioning unit was not working, and that the room was at a steady 74 degrees for hours. I told them this at around 2pm and left for the day. I got back around 8pm, and the lady at the front desk informed me that NO ONE went to fix the problem. After heading back to the room and waiting for maintenance to attempt to get it working (waited about an hour) we had to switch rooms (originally room 340, switched to room 142) because the problem was not fixed. By this time it was around 11pm.

I contacted the Hilton/Hampton HR and they opened a case about the listed issues, and told me that the hotel will be in touch within 2 days. I was then told to talk to the manager. When I went to speak to the manager, the lady at the desk said "she comes in at 10" so I went out, came back around 12pm and then was told "she left early today." I went the next day, and they lady at the desk said "she isn't coming in today." This was extremely frustrating. They were clearly avoiding me.

This is not the kind of stay I would expect at a Hampton Inn. This stay was absolutely horrible. The front desk was completely useless, and the room conditions were unacceptable. No water, not HOT water, no CLEAN water, broken air conditioning that was never fixed after 6 hours, and noisy mornings with people banging walls in our bathroom.

Despite all of this, they told me they wouldn't refund me but offered me 30k hilton points. Lol. Thats like $80? Bye. Shout out to my bank for the help.

TLDR: DO NOT...

The Inn was clean, standard for a Hampton Inn for the most part. Nothing fancy, but good value for what you paid for. Upon arriving that evening (01/19/24), I managed to get a room and all charges were explained to me. Which I authorized. The hospitality at that time was 3 to 4 star service from the gentleman assisting me that evening. The location was great, next to stores, restaurants and the movie theater. Very convenient, especially because it was 24° that night and a quick 4 min walk got me to Applebee's and 4 min walk got me back to the Inn. The room was clean, fresh and cozy. My upset it that at 10a the next day (01/20/24) house keeping came knocking to see if I was leaving, as check out was at 11am. I yelled out yes. As I was still waking up. After I got my things together, I went down stairs, I sat down at a table I'ma the lobby. My sister, who was with me, let the young lady at the front desk know we were out of the room and then she came to sit down next to me. 10 mins later, I was checking my transaction on my card and noticed I was charged for another day. I then walked to the front desk to point it out that I was charged for a 2nd day. Immediately the young lady said "we thought you were staying because we heard you on the phone". (First of all, who is "we"? Secondly, why wasn't it confirmed with me before the charge was made? No room call, no cell phone call, nothing. Only the room service cleaning lady knocking on the door to see if I was leaving and I said yes I am.) The young lady then printed out a receipt and continued to say, it was refunded. I asked her when will the refund post back to my account and she told me 3 to 5 business days. (When my sister went to the front desk, the young lady should have I'm immediately explained the misunderstanding, gave a receipt and showed the refund and at least apologized for an inaccurate assumption) I'm very unsatisfied and upset about what happened. There was no good reason she told to me to assume I was staying another night especially if no one contacted me to confirm. It was unprofessional and unexpected.

Ido not know if I would stay here again, if I did it would be with caution. An establishment is only as good as the quality and thoroughness of its team. I always look for good customer care at hotels. It's not just about a new renovation that makes a hotel good or great, it's the experience. So, if I did decided to come back to this particular Hampton Inn, I might have to tell the Hampton Inn employees to make a note on my account... Confirm with the card holder for any additional charges before charging the account. I was there for my bday weekend and I had to end early because the unexpected funds were taken from me.

(Shouldn't charges be settled upon check out? So that the charges can be reviewed first? Smh I'm just upset. I'm looking at this receipt and the charges aren't adding up. I'm going to call the manager! This could have...

We stayed on August 19-20, 2023. We stayed here before and had no issues, but this time was different. My wife has a feather allergy. We had 4 pillows in the room and 3 were feather filled. No problem there, because I just placed them in the hallway. We visited the temporary front desk, due to construction, and requested just 1 non-feather pillow for me to sleep on for 1 night. Simple request: I just needed 1 plain old ordinary poly filled pillow. I was told that there are no extra pillows available for the night! What?!! Am I to believe that Hilton/Hampton has lowered its service to a level where I can’t get 1 ordinary nonfeather filled pillow for a night?! She told me NO. Then she gave me 4 pillowcases and 2 extra towels so I could “make myself a pillow”! Was this really happening?! So, that’s how I slept that evening: on a chair cushion wrapped in towels and 4 pillow cases? When we checked out the next morning, with a very sore neck and back (I’m 65), we told the front desk staff lady about my ordeal at this “high quality “ hotel. She seemed quite surprised and treated us very well and with compassion and sympathy. She then offered a refund of our hotel bill for that night due to such an inconvenience. I must admit, I didn’t expect a full refund, but I was certainly pleased by her professionalism and understanding since we had received good service the last time we stayed there. After we got a full refund, we left for our cruise vacation. Now the bad news…..: 2 days later I get an email from my credit card company telling me that the Hampton Inn just CHARGED ME AGAIN for the full amount that was just refunded to me on August 20th! Are you kidding me?! Hampton Inn, Linden, NJ actually had the nerve to bill me, refund me, and then bill me again after I left the property! I’m not sure this is even legal considering that they gave me a final printed invoice showing a full refund. So I sent Hilton/Hampton an email explaining this peculiar situation 5 days ago and I have not heard back from anyone yet. I would certainly appreciate an explanation as to why any business would provide a refund and then bill a person again for the same service after they left the property. Please tell me this is just an oversight and that a refund is in the works. In fact, any sort of professional contact would be nice. I have a copy of that refunded invoice if...