Extended Stay America Hotels Dishonesty and Theft Hazelwood Missouri

We stayed at this hotel in St. Louis while enrolling my daughters in college.  I happened to have $700 with me for use in purchasing some furniture for their dorm rooms off of craigslist.  We checked out the following morning at about 9:30 am.  By about 10 am, I noticed that the money was missing, and realized that I had left it on the nightstand under the welcome paper given to me by the hotel.  Had I gone back to the hotel instead of calling, I probably would have been able to retrieve it.  Unwittingly, I called the hotel to ask them to please go to the room to retrieve and hold it for me.  They checked the room and informed me that the room had already been cleaned (yes, early in the day, less than an hour after my departure), and that the maid of course saw nothing.

At that point, the manager became involved and advised that she would file a police report and open an internal investigation into the matter.  She asked that I bring a written statement, and advised that the insurance company (AIG) would be in touch regarding reimbursement.  It is uncertain whether any report was ever filed, because I certainly received no notification of it.  No results of any internal investigation were ever shared either.

AIG did call me about a week later for an interview, and advised that they would be contacting the hotel and I would hear back from them shortly.  Everything up to this point sounded like they would cover the loss, whether actual theft, or simple oversight of the maid perhaps sweeping the paper off the nightstand and into the trash.

After a week of waiting, I contacted the hotel and left a message requesting a status update. No return call.  Another week went by and i was able to reach the manager, who gave me the insurance company number.  AIG representative did not answer the phone, so I left a message.

Eventually I received a letter telling me that they would not cover the loss, because I did not use their safekeeping service.  Nobody at the hotel even advised that they had such a service available; it would have been a nice option to know about -- who wants to have a wad of cash sitting out anyway.

I've had incidents in the past where a hotel actually called me after finding $120 in cash that I had misplaced.  I guess $700 was just too much for Extended Stay America staff to return to a guest.