St. Martin Reservation Centre/Owner Direct Rental

Just FYI....we rented a unit in Orient Bay, through this company. Written in the contract was free chairs at La Playa (4 of us were on the reservation). When we got to the island Sprimbarth Cap Caraibes were the representative on the island. They checked us in and had no knowledge of any chairs. I sent an email to "managing director" who we had been dealing with and he said "sorry, that arrangement has now changed...we can get chairs at Bikini and pay for them and if we eat there we will be reimbursed" . We used this arrangement once and were reimbursed for our chairs; however, we were not about to eat everyday at Bikini......I contacted these people once we got home saying we were looking to be reimbursed at a rate of $10/day/person for 5 days. Of course now all communications have gone silent at the other end. Have called them and have been advised that the person we dealt with is sick??? Any suggestions as to how to go about getting some satisfaction? I realize that it is not a lot of money but we upheld our part of the agreement by paying on time as requested, I simply want them to uphold their written agreement to provide the service we paid for.

If you paid with a credit card you might have some recourse by disputing the charge or a portion of it if that is possible.

Thought of that but we paid for half of it last August and the balance was in October 2016....trip was Jan. 2017. For the life of me I can not understand why people do not live up to agreements...especially when it is in writing.

Call your credit card company to see what the cut-off is. I know when I asked Capital One they told me 100 days, and one of my Citicards said "around" six months. YMMV.

Yes, it's worth a call at least.

Not that it is an excuse, but LaPlaya was recently sold, so perhaps that was why the contract was not honored, but they should have been able to get you chairs someplace else for free. I would be ticked in this instance also. Hope you are able to get a satisfactory resolution.

I have no problems with changes that happen from time to time and I can understand that; however, part of the written contract was the chairs, that was appealing as chairs generally go for $10/day/person (we were 4 people). Since we did not get them and since it was in our written agreement than I expect the reservation centre to compensate us appropriately. I am not asking for more than what we had contracted for. To me it seems like a simple matter. I have sent an inquiry to my CC company.

I don't disagree, that you didn't get what you bargained for.

Since they will not communicate with you, your only real hope is your credit card. Your prime time to have dealt with it was while on the island. They have your money, you are in Canada and they are on the island. They have the overwhelming advantage unless your credit card will step up.

Good luck.

No they are not on the island they are actually in Phoenix Arizona....I will be in Phoenix in October 2017, I might just drop into their office.

I had remembered someone posting they were not happy with this agency, did a search and came up with this. I thought there was another one that had to do with an employee but don't remember the employee's name to do a search. Hope it works out for you.
http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/s...rue#Post1660731

Worth a surprise visit.

The owner of the company is indeed very sick.

Is someone else handling reservations or problems during their illness?

I appreciate the fact that he may well be sick...BUT...that does not mean that the entire organization comes to a halt. We are not talking about the nuclear codes here...simply do what is right and what was contracted for.

So, what was the response from your credit card company?

Have yet to hear back from CC.....thanks for all your input...I will provide the conclusion when I know what it is.

If you just sent them an email, I would call them..

Just sent you a private message.

Re: Credit Card chargebacks. FYI, it will affect your credit rating. Secondly, I am not sure of the lease agreement but I highly doubt it would have been invalidated by the lack of beach chairs since that is a 3rd party responsibility so even if a chargeback is granted (which means nothing legally) the guest still has legal obligations under the short term lease agreement.
Best course of action is to reasonably negotiate between both parties.

Risking getting dinged on a credit report for a such small amount may not be worth it in the grand scheme of things.

Absolutely agree with everything you said...not worried about a credit rating at all....not looking to have the payment be reversed at all...simply want the contract fulfilled as to how it was entered into. If the portion of the contract was not fulfilled, that is fine, just reimburse back for that portion...seems very reasonable. The problem is that the one party that entered into the contract is not communicating for whatever reason.

I have disputed (and prevailed) multiple times on credit card charges. One time several months after a cancelled hotel stay and the property continued to try and bill me. I had a ZERO balance statement but when management changed, they tried two additional times to charge my account. I have a stellar credit rating and have for many years so I am not 100% buying into this having any major impact.

It sounds like the aggrieved did try to initiate civil and reasonable negotiation but it is hard to negotiate when the other party shuts you out.

Are you perhaps confusing chargebacks with charge-offs? They are two distinct beasts. I have never heard of chargebacks affecting one's credit rating.

You did it with a hotel. A short term lease agreement is a completely different story.

No chargebacks not charge offs. You can get dinged two ways. 1. Credit card merchants will note that you have a high rate of chargebacks, it will affect your rating.
2. The seller can easily and will undoubtedly submit a report and put an outstanding sum into collections. Furthermore, in this situation, if there is a lease agreement that is breached then you can be found in default with legal judgement.
Those items will certainly affect your debt rating.

My message is... just know the whole story before providing advice that can adversely affect someone. Sometimes your historical experience does not apply to the new.

I understand your point. I would make a straight offer of a $100 refund and be done with it. Make it simple. They are a competitor of ours and I know that are going through a devastating time. Just make it easy for both parties and resolve it quickly.
In all honesty, they were probably screwed by a local company that did not inform them of any changes or reneged. We all know the stories of what is going on with Orient Beach.
I'm not excusing them, just trying to simplify things.

Was this in fact a short term lease? I don't see that term mentioned.

The poster stated: "we rented a unit in Orient Bay"

You do sound like you would be willing to deal with it in a proper and expeditious way. Sadly, due to health or other reasons, the other company is taking a different road.

Can not make it any more simple $10/day/person for 5 days...there were 4 of us on the reservation...hence $200....I have simply asked to credit the same credit card that they used for payment...can not be any more simple. My understanding with another person in their office is that the arrangement, with La playa, ended 2 years ago; however, St.Martin Resrvation Centre never amended their advertising, deleting this benefit, nor the contract that we signed had not had the change deleted.....the reference in writing on both the advertising and on the contract denoted free chairs daily at LaPlaya...that is partially what we paid for and that is what I partially want to be compensated for.....this is not difficult....it is very straight forward and my request is very straight forward, very fair and very simple.

Renting is always a short term lease agreement.

Rob

I understand your point of view. I don't know enough of the details of your reservation frankly to speak of an appropriate resolution. I am only pointing out facts and filling in information. I am not here to pass judgement.
What you say may make sense to you (BTW make sure you have receipts) but it may not make sense with the counter party that is part of a negotiation.
An amenity like this that is lost should be around 1 to 4% of the lease value for compensation.
The other question is how much time and aggravation are you willing to endure.

Frankly,if it was me, I would say, I understand that you are going through a difficult time but I would appreciate if you could reimburse me "$$$". If you are pleasant and empathetic, it goes a long way. Keep in mind, they are a good company and I am quite sure they did not mean to deceive you. It is hard to keep up with all the information from suppliers and owners. For instance, we have a million data points to keep track of and I have two full time employees doing their best each day with the deluge of information. Not that you should care but there are two sides of the equation.

Take my advice as it is, I am just trying to resolve the issue. They are a good company and sometimes companies do deserve a second chance or special consideration.

Are you saying that disputing a charge will affect the credit rating of the cardholder? With all due respect, that is not correct.

Agreed.

I know you don't want it to be true but it is absolutely true.
In summary:
It depends on the circumstance and what the counter party chooses to do if a charge is reversed. As I mentioned, a chargeback is not a legal opinion or arbitration. It means absolutely nothing in legal terms and does not absolve one of debt or obligation. You are still bound by contracts and by service agreements especially if you used the service or product in full.

The counter party can and most likely will (if there is significant money at stake) seek a claim for unpaid invoice or services rendered plus penalty charges. That claim will be filed locally and a judgement rendered. Once judgement is rendered, the claim will be sent for collections and reported to your credit report. There is certainly other adverse events that can come of it as well depending on the nature of the situation and the posture adopted by the company.
There are a lot of tools businesses can do to recover obligations and it is completely up to them if they wish to pursue it.

So in summary, all these anecdotal tales of it not affecting credit rating is just that... anecdotal. In some cases it is absolutely the right path but in others, it can spell significant trouble, headache and cost. I think it would behoove everyone to be careful when providing advice that can have downstream issues.

As a reminder, I certainly did not come here picking an argument. Just the opposite, to properly inform you of the other side of the equation. A charge back is not as innocent or harmless as people think it is.

I'm a retired banker with 40 years in the business. I am well aware of all the tools a business can use to collect a debt. You are correct in stating that legal action can be taken to collect the disputed charge, but it's a long process, and the disputer's credit report cannot be adversely affected unless and until the judgment is rendered by the court. Simply disputing a charge will NOT adversely affect your credit report, which is what your earlier comment inferred.

I agree with Rob full heartedly. The owner of this company is a stand up guy. I deal with them on a regular basis on many of my bookings and he is very sick and I believe is just recovering from the hospital...

I will alert them of this post... I am sure he will respond to you once he recovers.

SXMBLUE and jeannie239 seem to know the person and the business....they seem to both agree it is a fine company....that being the case I will simply wait in the hope that they step up and do what it is right....I will advise as to what happens....thank you all for your input.

Still no resolution to this issue...will keep you updated.

Thanks for the update and good luck.

Final resolution...SMRC did not provide us with any refund, they had advised that as we were not able to produce receipts from the beach vendors we rented chairs from they were not able to issue any credit. So they did not dispute that we were owed the money just that we were not able to prove that we actually rented from other locations. As a "good will gesture" they would provide $150 grocery voucher to be used before Jan. 31,2018 if we booked another spot through them. HA HA HA!!! Anyway I did lodge a complaint to Visa, provided them with all the documents I had along with the emails that I had with SMRC attempting to settle the matter between ourselves. Visa have credited me with the return funds of $200.
Again I realize that the amount in dispute is small but when a travel agency advertises "free beach chairs" in both their advertising and the contract that we received after our initial payment, than I expect free beach chairs. Our rental was non-refundable hence it is unfair to advertise something, state it in the contract that you both agree to, than on the last confirmation, delete that clause and not say anything. I will allow the readers to make their own decision about right and wrong

Thanks for posting the final resolution. I guess they wanted you to provide receipts, which I guess you could have gotten? Not sure, as I've never personally gotten a receipt from a chair vendor. Regardless, it sounds like though at the end, Visa made it right for you, which is good.

Thanks for the update. I have personally never seen or ask for any receipt for beach chairs/umbrella. Doesn't sound like they really wanted to resolve it. Glad VISA stepped up and I hope they charge it back to the merchant.

If you dispute a charge with a credit card company, they will generally credit your account for the amount in dispute, then give the vendor a chance to respond, and finally issue a determination as to whether the charge is valid or not. If they rule in your favor, the credit stands. If they rule in the vendor's favor, they will reinstate the charge. If they have indeed made a final determination, then congratulations are in order. If not, this might not yet be over. Good luck!

That can take up to 120 days .

Sorry, just read this string and my response may be late. Yes, I was the original poster reporting the issue with Sprimbarth. To the poster above seeking a refund as promised, I can say based on my experience you will have a challenge. The 'managing director' during my stay was Jean-Paul Clerc and he did not respond to any of my emails over a 5 month period. None. And we had a robbery of a safe in our unit which was opened with a master key, and the key should have been under the control of Sprimbarth. So one would expect a reply based on the severity of the event. We received virtually no help and only by factually reporting the incident on this board and others did we receive compensation for the unused days of our stay, as we moved to a more secure hotel the night of the robbery. We asked for a refund of the days we did not stay at the unit, as of course we had to pre-pay. And we did not receive any refund of the $500 stolen from our safe. And the refund of the unused days came from the owner of the unit, not Sprimbarth (as per Sprimbarth’s email to me). So this ‘company’ takes no responsibility for anything since they pushed the responsibility to repay our unused days on the owner. I wish you good luck and all the best with your claim, but based on my experience they will ignore you. So keep up the posting. Others need to understand the business practices of this company.

To NJHarry.....this entire incident has nothing to do with Sprimbarth whatsoever.....they were in fact very helpful with everything.

We have finally recovered health wise enough to join in this conversation. JMSH was indeed our client for a modest rental unit in Orient Bay for 4 persons. Unfortunately, the policy regarding use of beach chairs offered by la Playa and other restaurants on Orient beach changed several times during 2016. The policy was not updated on our site and included an offer by the restaurant La Playa for free chairs. The new management of La Playa changed the policy, no longer offering free beach chairs.

The problem is that the chairs belong to the restaurants and not the OB condo owners...the chairs are not now, nor have they ever been part of the condo rental fees. Rather as a rental agent to the guest we do our best to communicate whatever the current offer is from the restaurants to the guests. We state in our vacation rental agreement that these policies are subject to change without notice and are not part of the rental.

To make this more clear, we have now amended the written policy for the budget units in Orient beach on our web site as follows:

"PLEASE NOTE: That neither beach chairs nor umbrellas are included with this rental, however, as a courtesy to vacation rental guests, Bikini Beach Restaurant & Bar will charge for them, and then deduct the rental cost of these items from your tab (food and drink) at the end of the day. Also, a limited amount of paper products and soaps (toilet paper, Kleenex, hand soap, dish soap, etc) will be provided for your arrival, but will not be replenished during your stay, therefore, it is up to the guest to supply these products for themselves after they run out. If the unit does not have a land line or VOIP telephone, a cell phone with rechargeable SIM card may be provided upon request. And lastly, WiFi is free but not guaranteed. Again, these amenities and inclusions are provided as a courtesy and are not part of the rental fee. All are subject to change without notice."

When the final confirmation was sent to the guest, it did not include free beach chairs. When the guests arrived they were met by the current Sprimbarth staff, which had changed 3 times during 2016 and they were not familiar with the prior changes for beach chair policy. The staff informed the guest of the current restaurant policy for free chairs with the purchase of lunch at Bikini Beach. By the way this is the policy of most of the major restaurants on orient beach. The guest did use this policy.

Even though our principal was in the hospital and in recovery and our company was going through a difficult time due to this health crisis, the guest was told on their first call that we would get back to them shortly.

We responded immediately to the complaint about beach chairs and received a response requesting a $200 credit on Jan 16, two days after their departure form the island. Five business days later we responded with an offer to reimburse up to $200 with documentation that these funds were actually spent. This offer was refused under the reason that they should not be expected to provide receipts, even though they were planing to request reimbursement before they decided to not use the free chair option available with the new policy. By way of note, receipts are offered upon request at all of the restaurants. We then offered a $150 credit on a future stay, without any documentation. This too was refused.

The guest then placed a dispute with their credit card company. Once this happens, we must remove all offers to settle this complaint. While the guest has received a temporary credit of $200, at this point we have to wait for the dispute to come to our bank at which point we will have the opportunity to tell our side of the situation and it will be up to the bank to make a decision about the credit.

For our clients who may be reading this feed, please understand that we have offered St Martin accommodations since 1991 to many thousands of guests at St Martin hotels, condos and villas. We process millions of dollars in transactions each year. In these thousands of transactions over the past 25 years, we have had few complaints. When there is a complaint or misunderstanding, we work hard to find a solution satisfactory to all parties.

Most customers are reasonable when attempting to negotiate any misunderstanding. This guest was not understanding when speaking with our staff. The reimbursement would not come from the booking fees but rather as principal owner of this company, I would have personally reimbursed the guest.

We work hard to maintain a high level of customer service to our guests...in this case the guest was very impatient even after explanation by phone of the health hardship we were experiencing, along with an explanation that he would be contacted in a few days.

We appreciate those of you in this feed who are in our industry and stood by SMRC. Someone in the feed suggested, that if the guest had been more reasonable in their request the matter could have been resolved quickly. That is absolutely correct, the staff felt the guest was taking advantage of the situation when they refused to provide documentation. We will update you when we get final resolution from the bank.

I hope your health continues to improve.

Just curious, you mention the terms "modest" and "budget". What exactly does that mean and does that come into play with what is included?

You also state:

Is the customer responsible for your site not being updated or the policy changing?

With regards to chairs, you stated:

That kind of tells me you can change the rules any time you want and regardless of what is written, it means little or nothing?

I had exactly the same reaction and the same questions as just articulated by Ruralcarrier. Furthermore, although I don't think you meant it this way, the use of the terms "modest" and "budget" sounds a little condescending, like those renters don't deserve the same consideration as high-end renters. Just sayin'.
But this seems to boil down to what appears to be a classic case of two parties having unfulfilled expectations of reasonableness and/or understanding, and escalating the situation by refusing to engage the other party's point of contention (kind of like Republicans and Democrats in DC right now).
So if you handle millions of dollars of transactions each year, that means you earn hundreds of thousand of dollars in revenue each year. I see more upside in just reimbursing the $200 (with or without receipts - by the way, who ever asks for a receipt for a beach chair?) and being done with it. I don't see any upside in continuing the fight, just more negative press for SMRC.

You were almost reading my mind and between the lines like I did.

While there may be different levels of accommodations, and each level may or may not included different amenities. What is "modest" and "budget" to one may be "high-end", "luxury" or "upscale" to another.

I absolutely agree with VitaMan. No upside to SMRC with continuing the fight. They should have just paid the $200 and avoided the negative press.

And updated their website for content and clarity.

W.

In my mind I felt we were more than reasonable...keep in mind this is what the offer of $150 was...

As a good faith gesture we will provide you with a $150 grocery credit (voucher) for your next SXM rental with reservation made through St Martin Reservation Center. This rental must occur by Jan 31, 2018 and be for a minimum of seven nights after which the offer expires. This voucher has no cash value. Issuance of this voucher is also contingent on updating of negative comments on Travel Talk to reflect that you have been compensated by St Martin Reservation Center for your inconvenience. We make this offer to you to resolve your complaint without accepting responsibility for the change in policy by the restaurant...

Here is my biggest issue...one of the resaons that we booked this location is the free beach chairs; this offer was advertised when we booked, this inclusion of the beach chairs was spelled out on our confirmation in July 2016, it was not spelled out on our final confirmation in October 2016 (keep in mind that it is clearly spelled out that all funds are non-refundable); HOWEVER, and this is the biggest most concerning point, if the conditions had changed, the agency knew about it and did not say anything to us or point that out in October 2016 I think that is deceitful.

Once again I will leave it to the readers to make their own decisions about who is right and wrong.

My apologies for any confusion. Best of luck to you.

A final resolution has been given to this case through VISA (they have completed their investigation)...they have agreed with my position and have credited back my account the requested funds of $200. Seems like all of this could have been avoided with a simple "woops sorry, we will take care of this"....anyway it is what it is. Thanks for the support

And thanks to you for coming back with the final resolution. I guess it pays to be persistent.