Mourning family experiences upsetting treatment at Quality Inn

On Wednesday, March 31, Morgan Campbell and her family arrived at the Quality Inn in Fallbrook to prepare for her mother’s funeral after suddenly losing her to a stroke.

While Campbell has lived in Fallbrook on and off for 30 years, she currently resides in Oklahoma. She said that after having positive experiences at the Quality Inn while she lived in Fallbrook, she reserved hotel rooms for her family to stay in while they planned and attended the funeral nearby. According to Campbell, the first day, she was met with an unfortunate experience at the hotel.

“When my daughter and I checked in at 5:30 p.m., the beds were unmade, the room was a mess, and the phone cord had been ripped out of the wall,” said Campbell. “After speaking with an employee, they told us that the room would not be ready until 7:30. Then, my sister arrived and checked into her two rooms, the same thing. Beds were unmade and neither room had been cleaned.”

They went out to dinner while they waited for the three rooms to be cleaned, and at 10:30 p.m., they got a call from the Inn saying that only one of Campbell’s sister’s rooms would be available. She said they were assured by the staff that the second room would be ready the next morning, and arrangements were made for Campbell to stay in the room when it was ready.

Campbell left that morning to make arrangements for her mother’s funeral at a funeral home. She said she returned to find all of her belongings locked in her room and that the staff demanded that she pay for the night, even though she had already paid to stay in a different room. She asked to speak with the manager, and the employees told her that the manager would be calling her to clear things up.

While she waited for the call, Campbell drove to the San Diego airport to pick up her elderly aunts, age 89 and 75, who had reserved their rooms at the same hotel.

She returned to her room still being locked, and her daughter had checked into another room with no towels and a dirty bathroom. Campbell said this was the final straw for her and her daughter, and they decided that they wanted to stay in a different place. After hearing about the experience, Campbell said the elderly aunts decided the same.

“When my aunts decided they did not want to stay, the girl working informed them that their credit cards would still be charged $392 for the room,” she said. “My aunts are on a fixed income, and they didn’t have any choice. They had to stay.”

After all this, Campbell’s room was still locked with all of her belongings inside. She said she decided to call the sheriff’s department, and she was able to file a report and reclaim her items. The staff would not let her elderly aunts check in to their room until the sheriff arrived, so they were forced to sit and wait in the lobby until around 10:30 p.m.

When her aunts were able to check in, their room was on the third floor of the building with no elevator. After losing a loved one, flying to San Diego, waiting in a lobby for multiple hours, the 89 year old and 75 year old aunts walked up two flights of stairs to get to their room.

“This was unlike any experience I’ve had in Fallbrook, after 30 years I’ve never had any major issues here until now,” she said. “I never even received an apology from the staff members, except one housekeeper, and more than a week later, I have still not heard from the manager.”

Campbell said she hopes that no one ever has this type of experience again at the Quality Inn.

“I just lost my mom, I thought I still had five or six more years left with her,” she said. “Everything was a disaster, this is an awful time in my life and this experience did not make it any easier.”

“The Friendly Village should not be associated with anything like that.”