Business ProfileforElk Springs Resort

DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY!!! We drove 9 hours for our honeymoon to an awful cabin. At arriving to our cabin there was a foul smell from a porta potty and a mess of construction right out our front door. What a view!! Once we got to the front door there was a gas smell. We were there all of about 20 min when we had to leave from getting sick from the fumes. The place was dirty!! I didn’t even want to sit on the couch. We tried to contact someone and finally got a text saying they would send out maintenance. We then had to go wait somewhere else for 2 hours and then got a text saying “they turned off the pilot to the fireplace” we finally got a call and said it was probably just a combination of the chlorine and the pilot light. I then informed her we both felt sick after being in the cabin for a short period of time and asked if maintenance utilized an air monitor to ensure it was safe. They told us they would not give us a new cabin until I sent them screenshots of other BBB complaints that I found. When we asked for a refund to fix the situation she told us to contact our bank and file a dispute. She then hung up on me when I was questioning how they tested for a gas leak. I even sent a message asking if she thought it was safe for us to sleep in that type of environment. We are at a loss for words we left at 6am and it’s now 11pm and we’re traveling back home since they completely ruined our trip. What is suppose to be an exciting and fun start to our marriage was a complete disappointment.

duplicate of 36417

Update: We figured Elk Springs would respond to this complaint with a generic response. Based on previous complaints, that seems to be the easy way around this company’s poor business practice. It is our own fault for not doing more research prior to booking with this company. If you search them on the bbb, yelp or trip advisor the reviews are much lower then the ones found on the Elk Springs website and Facebook page. The reason for this we found is they do not allow you to leave a review on the website, unless of course they allow it and why would they let anything beyond what makes them look good be posted. Following our honest review being posted to the Elk Springs Facebook page it was promptly deleted and we were blocked. Clearly a deceptive business practice for a consumer who would trust the reviews posted to to the website to be honest. We detected an odor of gas while entering the door and inside the cabin. Approximately 20 minutes of being inside the cabin we began getting nauseous combined with a headache. Any reasonable person would have a concern for health, knowing these to be symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. After being denied to be moved cabins and now having to wait for “maintenance” to evaluate the problem we had to alter our travel plans. Elk Springs indicated that maintenance turned off the pilot light to the gas fireplace since the “smell” was bothering us. Elk Springs Customer Service would not answer our inquiry to maintenance using an air monitor to ensure a safe environment. We were denied a refund when asked. The following day we spoke with Beth, who indicated she was a manager. Beth advised she was reviewing all the information prior to making a decision to refund our money. Beth stated she was going to be sending a technician, who was trained to evaluate these problems. This leads me to believe the “maintenance” worker who respnded the previous evening was not trained to make an accurate evaluation, and could not fairly assess if the air quality was safe. Beth later left a voicemail stating there was no gas leak, however it was found that there were chemical odors present in the cabin that could cause a headache. Back to our arrival, why would any reasonable person feel safe or stay in an environment they reasonably believe to be hazardous to health? Elk Springs could not give an honest assessment of this situation until the following day when they had what they stated would be a certified tech respond. How can Elk Springs believe it was reasonable to force us into staying at this cabin, while holding our payment for the cabin and cleaning fees ransom? We chose to not take a risk without certainty of having lodging that was safe to our health. Elk Springs has denied a refund for a product they provided, which I believe a reasonable person or consumer would feel was risk to health. We were advised by customer service and the manager to dispute the charge through our our financial institution as they were denying a refund. This company needs major improvement on quality, accountability, and customer service. It appears a previous consumer who had issues, attempted to file a complaint through the Tennessee Health Department (THD). The previous consumer posted that the THD could not do anything because Elk Springs is a private company so we did not explore this avenue. It seems Elk Springs beleives they can get away with cutting corners and taking advantage of consumers as they are not being held accountable. Text messages and voicemail concerning this matter are available upon request and will be preserved. We would request that Elk Springs preserve any and all recorded calls, maintenance reports and any additional content associated to this complaint until the disposition.