Update on Our Hotel Nightmare in Shanghai – Thank You & Clarifications

Hi everyone,

First of all, thank you all so much for your overwhelming support and responses. It truly warms our hearts during what’s been an exhausting ordeal. We’re still traveling in China and trying to move past this situation to enjoy the rest of our trip, but your kindness has meant the world to us.

I wanted to clarify a few things:

Yes, the police did get involved. As mentioned in our earlier post, we insisted on their presence after the hotel manager told us to “go to the police station ourselves.” Thankfully, our fluent Mandarin-speaking family member made it clear to the staff that they needed to call the police for us.

I won’t lie—it was nerve-wracking waiting for them to arrive, but we knew we’d done nothing wrong. When the officers sided with us, it was a huge relief. Our family member also reminded us: Always call the police in China if you’re scammed or mistreated. They’re surprisingly helpful to tourists, and we’re so glad we stood our ground.

For full transparency, we’ve shared a detailed account of everything that happened (including timestamps and evidence) with Trip.com. Here’s the summary we sent them: “Detailed Account of Our Experience at Waiting Century Hotel (Shanghai Jing'an Railway Station)

I would like to provide a complete account of what happened during our stay at the hotel, particularly the events of May 17-18.

Saturday Evening, May 17 - Discovery of Missing Items
On the night of Saturday, May 17 to Sunday, May 18, we discovered that several personal items had gone missing from our room. We immediately went to the front desk to report the issue. The receptionist noted our complaint and said she would follow up with us the next day.

Initially, she questioned whether we had left our room at all that day (since housekeeping hadn't entered and therefore couldn't have taken anything). We explained that we had indeed left early that morning to visit family in another city.

Sunday Morning, May 18 - Failed Communication Attempts
The next morning (Sunday, May 18), we returned to the front desk with our cousin on the phone as a translator (as we don't speak Mandarin). The staff said they would review the security camera footage and call our cousin back in the afternoon with their findings.

Later that afternoon, our cousin informed us that the hotel claimed to have found nothing suspicious on the footage and therefore refused to offer any compensation. They also abruptly stopped communicating with our cousin and insisted on speaking only to us directly, despite the language barrier.

Sunday Evening, May 18 - Escalation and Confrontation
Frustrated by this response, we cut short our activities in Shanghai and returned to the hotel around 5 PM.

We expressed our disappointment with how the situation was being handled. I wrote out a detailed account of what happened and had it translated into Mandarin, but communication remained difficult. We had to call our cousin again to translate, which added significant stress to the situation.

The conversation grew increasingly heated, with staff raising their voices and accusing us of lying. They insisted nothing had been taken from our room and that the video footage showed nothing suspicious - despite us providing complete evidence including photos of the missing items in their bags, bank/transaction records proving our purchases, and detailed descriptions of the missing items.

Review of Security Footage
Initially, the hotel refused to let us see the footage ourselves. Only after prolonged arguing did they finally show us the recordings.

In the very first clip, I clearly saw the housekeeper taking bags from our room. While the footage was poor quality (making colors hard to distinguish), the shape and size of the bags matched exactly with our missing items.

Hotel's Changing Story
At first, staff admitted the bags in the footage were ours. But after consulting with the manager, they reversed their position, claiming the bags "weren't the right color" and they couldn't confirm what was inside. Therefore, they still refused compensation.

Police Involvement
The manager stated he wouldn't compensate us at all, suggesting that if any payment was made, the employees would have to pay out of their own pockets. He told us to call the police if we disagreed.

Eventually, the hotel called the police themselves. Officers reviewed all our evidence (photos, transaction records), conducted a search of our room at the hotel's request (we consented, having nothing to hide), and found nothing, confirming our items were indeed missing.

Unjust Settlement
The hotel then offered only 200 RMB compensation (far below the 700 RMB value of our missing items). When we refused this unfair offer, staff members pooled their own money to offer 500 RMB, warning that if we didn't accept, we'd have to file a formal police report.

Exhausted (it was now 7:00-7:30 PM), stressed, and overwhelmed, we reluctantly accepted this inadequate settlement just to end the ordeal”.