What was meant to be a dream holiday in Antigua and Barbuda for two women from Jamaica and the UK turned out to be a visit they would rather wish they could forget.
Ahead of their arrival on Sunday, April 14, the duo had booked a “rustic” rental home on the online travel agency, Booking.com for a week’s stay. They had hoped to do some sightseeing, enjoy the tranquil beaches and enjoy birthday celebrations on April 17.
The property is managed by a man who was known to the ladies only by his first name, Cedric, and is owned by Marsha Meade—who mainly communicated with the duo through emails.
“We got to the property, and everything seemed fine. However, the property was not what we had expected; nonetheless, we chose to stay there,” one of the women told Observer.
The next day, they said they left the property at around 10 am to explore the island, and returned at 6:30pm.
However, this was where their dream birthday bash took a turn for the worse as the home was burglarised during their absence.
“Upon realising this, we rang the property manager and also the police and when the property manager came, he made mention of the fact that he heard the ring from the motion sensor camera.
“However, he said he didn’t check because he was busy, and he thought it was us,” they said.
They were originally told that they would be refunded their money, excluding the one night they stayed at the villa.
“We were told that we would be given our money back, which is US $766, minus the night that we stayed, so we should have been given back US $642.
“However, we left the property without even getting our money back because the property manager stated that he didn’t have the money on him, so we had to book another property and find that additional cost out of our pockets,” one of them said during our interview last week.
“However, Tuesday morning, we got a message from the homeowner to say that we were the ones who left the window open, and so we should take responsibility for the transformers, that were stolen from them from the property, which is US $150, so they’re only giving us $492 back and up to this point, we still have not received that money.”
According to the two women, the property owner did not show compassion for their ordeal since not only did the women lose some of their belongings, but they felt that their sense of safety was compromised.
“Well, she had sent me a message from booking.com, so what she had said was that she’s sorry to hear about the burglary and she wanted us to write a list of the things that were missing.
“She didn’t show any kind of compassion in regard to the fact that it’s not even just the stuff that we’ve lost, but also the violation of somebody’s going through your intimate things,”
According to the women, the issue is whether or not a window at the property was left open, which allowed the thieves to enter the property.
The women allege that Marsha, the property owner, told them in an email that there was no break-in despite no police report had been completed at the time.
The property manager also spoke to Observer media about the incident, stating that it was unfortunate and deeply regrettable; however our attempts to get more details from him about the incident were unsuccessful.
The two women have expressed their dismay about how the situation has unfolded.
“Well, we are not happy to be in Antigua anymore because I feel like it’s unsafe and if I could have left yesterday and gone back home, I would have because I would have expected the owner to show a bit of compassion, but all she was concerned about is her items.
“She didn’t care about even where we went,” the women said.