Monday, July 18, 2011

Do you leave tips for the housekeepers?

If you do, thank you. That is very generous and the staff really appreciates it.

The housekeepers work very hard and have a dirty job. Leaving tips for housekeepers has not been fully recognized as a standard like tipping a bellman, but it is fairly common. People will leave a request on a note with a tip, a thank you tip at the end of a stay or a few dollars each day for the service.

However, if you are going to leave a tip for a housekeeper, please don't make it a counterfeit bill!

Yes...Maria was left a nice tip of $10.00. Well, actually, it was a nice picture of $10.00. It was a $10.00 counterfeit bill!

It is actually a pretty good one compared to the ones I have seen in the past. It is missing some of the basic security features, but the way people handle money quickly, and as a small note, I can see how the guest left it (mistakenly, I hope).

Poor Maria was very surprised when she went to Starbucks to buy a coffee and the very alert barista caught it. It goes without saying how embarrassed and surprised Maria was. That was when she told all of us at the hotel what had happened. We're just glad we weren't bailing her out of Federal Prison.


It used to be the notes that were counterfeits were only $100 bills and the like. Now, the high quality home printing and computers make it much easier and cheaper to counterfeit and they are even doing small denominations.

Be on the lookout!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How awful for Maria. The staff are so hard working and sweet - I hope it was a mistake.