Next time you leave a review, you might want to wait a bit

Susan Leger is a Georgia grandmother who, a few months ago, thought she was going to have a fun girls' getaway with her six-year-old granddaughter. So she booked three nights at the Baymont Inn & Suites in Helen, Georgia.

Now, I seem to recall staying at a Baymont (in lovely Gurnee, Illinois) many years ago, and there was nothing glam or luxe about it. It was basic. It was clean enough. It was cheap. And it was near where I wanted to go, which was my aunt's house in Lake Villa. (Plus it was near the Gurnee Mills outlet stores, where at Saks Fifth Avenue, or Off Fifth, or whatever Saks' bargain shop is called, I got a fabulous Jill Sander skirt for short money. I wore that skirt - and I cannot begin to describe how lovely the material (a very fine light wool in a very pretty shade of pale bluish-grayish green) and how great the fit - for well over a decade. And then I spilled something on it that repeated cleanings couldn't get out. So, alas, I had to part company with it.)

Jill Sanders skirt aside, I know first hand that a Baymont Inn is nothing fancy. But I'm sure it was plenty exciting for a six-year-old out for adventure with her grandma.

And quite the adventure it turned out to be. As in bad adventure, as opposed to good adventure.

Leger had booked the Baymont through Hotels.com and a night into her stay - resonding to a prompt from Hotels.com to do so - she gave it a review. She gave it a three-star review, citing the pool not being opened, their toilet not flushing all that well, and its generaly rundown appearance.

Soon thereafter, [manager Danny] Vyas was screaming at her to leave. Speaking with [Atlanta TV station] 11Alive, Leger described how frightening the experience was for her granddaughter.

"The man is screaming at me. He was saying, 'You get out now. I call the police.' My granddaughter's like clinging to my leg and crying so hard. This was scary. This was just horrifying."

Before long, the police had arrived to escort Leger and her granddaughter off the premises after Vyas called 911—a turn of events that left Leger mystified. (Source: ComicSands)

By the way, when the cops kicked Leger and her granddaughter out, they were still in their PJs. It was 8:40 p.m. Past the child's bedtime.

Anyway, Vyas initially claimed that he called the police, telling the dispatcher that Leger was refusing to leave the Inn, because she should have brought her complaints to him and his staff first. That was in September. In November, when the station was following up on the story, Vyas changed his tune and stated that she was an overcomplainer, calling the front desk 10+ times an hour to bitch about something - an assertion that Leger denied.

Bad enough that Susan Leger and her grandchild had to do a PJ perp walk, but Hotels.com refused her a refund for her aborted stay, as it's against their policy. Pressure from the station eventually got Leger the refund she was looking for, but it took a few months.

Can you imagine any of this? Especially calling in the police. Among other things, while I don't imagine that there's a ton of crime in Helen, Georgia (pop. 430), I'm guessing that Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife have better things to spend their time on. Helen is basically a tourist town, a Bavarian themed village - jawohl! - with shops, tubing, ziplining, and a nearby Cabbage Patch Kids museum. 

Just the sort of place a grandma could have a fine time with her granddaugther.

By no means a crime center, but even the odd traffic violation, tubing accident, and shoplifting incident would seem to rank higher in criminal importance over a review on Hotels.com. 

And it was a three-star review, which is really just kind of average-y. Can you imagine if Leger wasn't the nice little old grandma type who would have felt bad about leaving a one-star review, which was probably what she was thinking?

And just what was Danny Vyas thinking? 

Whatever he was thinking then, he's probably thinking something else entirely now that this story has been making its way around the globe. Or at least to the British tabloids.

I know first hand the the customer is not always right.

Still, this seems so completely over the top.

Not that she'd want to stay there, but I think that Susan Leger deserves free nights forever at the Baymont of her choice. Better yet, since Baymont is owned by Wyndham, why not award her with some free nights at one of their more upscale properties? Just make sure it's one with a working, that's well-maintained, and that has well-flushing toilets. Maybe she'll even promise not to leave a review while she's there...