playadelcarmenhostels

      Always Room For The Next Victim
     Danger!!!! Tequilita Hostel
                            Playa Del Carmen, Mexico
                          www.hostleworld.com
                             www.hostels.com

Tequilita Hostel
                       Calle 6 entre Av. 15 Y AV.20, Playa del Carmen, Mexico
To look at the photos and descriptions of Tequilita Hostel on hostels.com and hostelworld.com, some may think that this hostel is *the* place to stay in Playa del Carmen. This would be a mistake to risk material theft and physical danger that will remind you of Tequilita Hostel and Playa del Carmen for many years. Below is my reason for staying there and my story about what happened. This site is being written to warn others of the danger of Tequilita Hostel and to bring it to the attention of the tourist office of Playa del Carmen and the city government so they can deal with such situations before they become more dire. Playa del Carmen is, over-all a safe place to visit if precautions are taken, and one of those precautions, especially for young inexperience vacationers, is avoiding such places as Tequilita Hostel, which follows no security standards and admittedly lets people in with no ID verification. You would be wise to read this site and avoid Tequilita.

My Own View
Tequilita Hostel on 6th Calle, between 15th and 20th Avenue, is the virtual center of the hostels in Playa del Carmen, with Che Hostel on one side and the 6/15 Hostel on the other side, each separated by just a wall. Nearby, within three minutes walk, are the majority of the other hostels in town. The Tequilita hostel is brightly painted, inside and out, with ghostly figures, giving it the look of those less-traveled as a place where you can enjoy the party and take it easy. The truth is the color patterns and images incorporated on the walls seem to be painted by a tequila-intoxicated painter is very indicative of places that have hidden problems. This was indeed the case of Tequilita Hostel, a place that could be famous in Playa del Carmen if it was cleaned up and the riff-raff management run out, but is now a dangerous place where your belongings and safety are in danger. The story I am about to tell will make this very evident and the on-site evaluation of the conditions explained in my evaluation at in the end part of this site will drive the point home that Tequilita Hostel is one place to stay well clear of.

How it all Started...
The Tequilita Hostel Thief - June 3rd, 2012
I'm a 58 year old American world traveler who has been on the move for years, having no real place I call my home. I make my living on my computer from investments and I write. I was in Mexico over two months, traveling through the states of Quintana Roo, Yucatan, Chiapas, and Campeche, and my appearance at the Tequilita Hostel was my fourth in Playa del Carmen. In my previous three visits to Playa, I visited different hostels to check them out and the city of Playa del Carmen itself as a potential place to call home for at least part of the year and operate an on-line evaluation businesses. I had stayed at the Che Hostel and the 6/15 Hostel on either side of the Tequilita, so it was time to visit this painted managery in the middle.

I did not do a sweep of the Tequilita, I wanted to take the time by staying there to look it over and observe the operation of the place. I have stayed at enough hostels over the years all over the world to know that some places can fool you to seem better or worse than they really are. I tend not to judge to quickly.

The snatch and grab of my computer from my third floor room at 1 AM, in my four minutes of absence while I went to get my water bottle out of the refrigerator on the next floor up definitely made it clear that Tequilita Hostel was a bad place. I was on my computer for hours on the lower bunk in my six bed dorm room doing research and writing emails and was very tired and thirsty. The character called Charlie, a local and the only other person in the room or on the top floor where the kitchen was pretended to be asleep in the bunk above me. In the four minutes I was gone, Charlie jumped out of his bed, snatched my computer and ran down three flights of stairs, unlocked the front gate with his key, and disappeared into the streets of Playa del Carmen like a cockroach.

The search for Charlie to the booming club area with some of the hostel guests proved fruitless. They were genuinely disgusted by what Charlie did, as it put them in a bad light and I think they felt responsible for this crime, as the story will tell. I found out during a visit to one of the clubs that night during the search from talking to an old girlfriend of Charlie from three years ago that tended bars, that stealing is Charlie's occupation, he even stole 20,000 pesos or about $1500 USD dollars from her.

The same group that went on the search for Charlie spent part of the early evening with him on the roof of the hostel, right next to the kitchen. I watched and listened with my limited Spanish to feel out the situation. I met Charlie briefly there as he came in the kitchen where I was cooking my dinner and I sensed something was not right. While cooking and eating my dinner only fifteen feet from the group, I felt Charlie was one of the group and there was laughter and active discussion going on between the six of them. By the time I finished dinner and returned to my room one level down it was dark and I continued on with my work on the computer. I could still hear the conversation for more than hour from the roof top. Eventually all got silent for a couple hours until Charlie came in and said good night and climbed in the bunk above me.

The group had headed to the party area in town as I found out later and Charlie apparently hung around in silence I expect still on the roof top waiting for me to sleep so he could rob my bag with my computer in it that I kept next to me in bed. There were no lockers in the room and the tiny one in the office which was locked up hours before could be opened in thirty seconds with a small phillips screwdriver because the micro size fixtures all the screw heads pointing outward giving easy access to the tiny screws.

My presumption then, against my original interpretation of Charlie, was he was just one of the group who was tired and ready for bed. I found out, after the fact, the true story was quite different. The members of the group told me later that they thought Charlie was on the strange side and told them that his reason for being there that night is that he had just beat up his girlfriend and needed a place to stay. I also was told that the hostel staff, the woman that worked there at the time, did not demand Charlie show and take record of his ID, as required at that hostel, a fact to which she admitted the next morning. Charlie was allowed to enter the hostel, get out the front gate with the key provided by the hostel needed to unlock the gate, and no one knew who he really was.

Had his government ID been demanded, Charlie would not have been there because I expect he did not have one or would decline to present one and my computer would not have been stolen.

I stayed around the next day to get the full story on this all and try and talk to the alleged owner, a certain Roberto, and try and work things out in a peaceful way, but he refused both offers saying yes they should have had his ID but they were still “not responsible” for the theft of the computer.

You Decide
The guys that talked to Charlie on the roof that night told me later that they thought there was something wrong with him and that they could see it even in his eyes and they were right. Even in the brief contact I had with him I saw something wrong but because they were talking to him for such a long time I assumed my first impression was wrong. Charlie was an admitted female-beater and a notorious thief and the management of the Tequilita Hostel admitted him and gave him keys with no ID check that is standard procedure. This is a dangerous situation especially when there is no security and everyone is gone to the party area downtown and you awake to find Charlie in YOUR room. He was there to steal whatever he could that night and why he was pretending to be asleep in the bunk above me. He would not confront me directly, but would he do so to you? What would you do in such an event? Ask yourself, do you want to be in a place like Tequilita alone with a Charlie character at 1 AM with no staff or help around. I found out the hard way with the theft of my computer. What are you willing to lose in Tequilita Hostel? But on the bright side, and according to their information on the hostel booking sites, it is a “great party place” where there is “lots of Tequila” so maybe it will be worth it for you. You decide.

What Does Hostelworld.com Say About Tequilita Hostel?

Hostel Description From Hostelworld June 3rd 2012. My comments are given in black
Tequila Hostel is a place full of friends, culture, party and lots TEQUILA, is a special place when you visit mexico as it gives you all the colors and flavors of Mexican culture, landscapes and beautiful destinations of the Riviera Maya, this hostel wants to make you feel at the REAL MEXICO, both in decoration and in its theme and offering information on each of its walls, will know every inch of this place to discover the different characters in the history of mexico, descriptions of each of sites that can not fail to know in Mexico, all combined with the true taste of authentic drink tequila from mexico, you better take it the hottest place dominated the party and the turquoise Caribbean Sea waters and white sands toonly three blocks from the beach, TEQUILITA is one of the most authentic hostels in Playa del Carmen, we also offer WI-FI, communal kitchen, BBQ, TV area and other things but above all much tequila, we just want you feel at home.

In decoration and in its theme and offering information on each of its walls, will know every inch of this place to discover the different characters in the history of mexico, descriptions of each of sites that can not fail to know in Mexico,
This is telling you this place is run by amateurs in the hostel business, trying to entice young kids into believing that it is a "special place" that is "full of friends." They will be your friends as long as you have something they want and they take no responsibility for their actions.

TEQUILITA is one of the most authentic hostels in Playa del Carmen,
A gross overstatement – Tequilita is a rat hole run by a young local boy called Roberto who pretends to be the owner. Roberto is too young and stupid to be the owner of anything and I expect one of his relatives gave him the job to cover for the real owner or lease-holder, whom I suspect is the old woman and allowed the infamous criminal Charlie into the hostel with no ID.

Tequilita Hostel, Is a special place when you visit Mexico as it gives you all the colors and flavors of Mexican culture, landscapes and beautiful destinations of the Riviera Maya,
This should be an insult to Playa del Carmen and the greater state of Quintana Roo. To have such a rat hole as Tequilita in their city and state that claims to be the best around that gives you all the colors and flavors of Mexican culture, and allows criminals to stay there with no checks of ID's is setting the stage for bad things to come. If this is what Mexican culture in Playa del Carmen and the state of Quintana Roo is all about, Playa will end up like many of the coastal beach front holes found around the world, filled with thieves, prostitutes and pervasive corruption, and not a beloved destination for foreigners and their families. Hostels set the impressions of young backpackers and can determine if they return later with families. Scams like Tequilita that allow thieves to stay there with no ID and to prey on foreigners and claim to be the AUTHENTIC MEXICAN CULTURE, should make the local Mayan people of the state of Quintana Roo angry. If such places like Tequilita Hostel are AUTHENTIC MEXICO then Playa del Carmen and Quintana Roo are doomed.

              Fraud By Both Hostelworld.com And Tequilita Hostel And Hostels.com
     Gross Lies and Distortions of Facilities
The facilities provided as defined by both hostelworld.com and hostels.com are given below with my observations of such alleged facilities.
24 hour reception-Is an outright lie, doesn't exist, they lock the office up around 10 PM every night and disappear completely so no one can find them. The place is completely at the mercy of whoever is in there or can climb over the walls or has a key to the front gate which could be anyone in Playa del Carmen and I expect every thief in town has one. Criminals just have to wait until the person in the office locks up and heads for the party area in Playa, which doesn't even get started until about midnight and goes until dawn. There is a key-making booth just outside of the Tequilita Hostel and they will make as many keys as you like to hand out to anyone.
24 Hour Security-They must mean that single gate up front that all the criminals in Playa del Carmen have a key to, including Charlie who stole my computer and disappeared into the night in just a few minutes. Makes you feel real safe, doesn't it, knowing the Charlie types can get at you in the night when ever they want?
BBQ-No such thing exist unless you build a fire yourself on the concrete roof area with the rotten wood debris there. No facilities exists of this nature.
Book Exchange-Did not see one and if there are a few books in the corner I can only imagine the quality and dates on them.
Cable TV-Yes they do have a TV in the office, but the only place to watch it in that tiny place is from a two-person couch, and an employee or friend of the employees is always sitting there. They see the TV as their entertainment not yours
Cafe-No such thing exist and there is no sign that it ever did.
Free City Maps-No free city maps found or any other real information that could be helpful. There was a brochure rack in the office, void of maps or useful brochures, and what was in it did not look like it had any importance to anyone. I already knew Playa and tourist maps can be picked up at tourist booths around town.
Free Internet Access
There are no computers available to the guest at the hostel. The real owner is not completely stupid, she would not have any computers publicly available because she knows that all the thieves in Playa would be stampeding in with their personal keys to steal them. There is one computer behind the desk for the hostel's use and for the entertainment of who ever is in charge of the desk.
Free WiFi-However, because the thieves are not pulling cables out of the walls, there is free WiFi.
Hot Showers-I never saw the first drop of hot water, unless I was boiling it on the stove for coffee. Since it was summer I did not take much notice, but later in the year it could be uncomfortable. For those of you who were raised on hot showers it could be an inconvenience.
Kitchen-There is a poor excuse for a kitchen on the roof. The gas stove leaks badly and you need to shut the gas off on the tank when finished each time. The refrigerator is about one year old but looks as if it has not been cleaned since it was first turned on.
Laundry Facilities-The only laundry facilities you will find is your own plastic bucket and your own laundry soap.
Lockers-There were no lockers in my 6 bed dorm room and the tiny wooden lockers supposedly secure in the office were a complete joke. With a standard small phillips screw driver, I could have them opened up in 30 seconds with no noise and steal the contents. For a total of less than 3 minutes I could open them take what ever contents I wanted and reinstall the hasp and no one would ever know except the person who found all their valuables gone and the staff would just say they must have forgotten and left it some where else. The standard for some hostels is to put the smallest hinges and hasps on the lockers that are made and to install them so that the screw heads are pointing outward making it so a child could open the box. The hinges and hasps are the size used on a tiny toy jewelry box, making it an open bank for anyone in the office when money is needed. This is the worst security I have ever seen, and it is no accident, they do this deliberately. Some inexperienced traveler could easily lose everything he owns in just a few minutes and there would be no recourse, only the look of Roberto saying he is not responsible.
Luggage Storage-I never saw any luggage storage, but I never asked. Considering the rest of the security measures, your luggage would be as good as gone or at least anything of value in it.
Swimming Pool-This is the biggest laugh of all even worse than the security because there is no pool, never was one, not even remotely possible in the place. A total fraud like the rest of the place. The closest you will get to a swimming pool in the place is the toilet.
Tour/Travel Desk-Another joke, there is no tour or travel operation there, the owner is not intelligent enough to be able to organize anything and has no money.

            What Does Hostels.com Say About Tequilita Hostel?

From Hostels.com    June 3rd 2012
My comments in black
From Hostels.com, "Tequilita Hostel, is a friendly, clean and warm. We welcome travellers from all over the world and we know what travelers value and need during their stay."
There is nothing clean and warm about this place. The place is dirty the bathroom and shower were never cleaned during my stay and, from their appearances, it seems had not been for many weeks before. The small screen on the window above the shower was covered with black mold to the extent it blocked out part of the sunlight and the window glass panels behind the screen were half-covered with the same. The roof top, which could be a great place and the best of all the hostels in town, was a junk yard of debris and a dump from the original construction or renovation phase of the hostel years before.

The hostel has such great potential with it's location and the height of the building and the expanse of the roof top area, but it was never finished and then the place was run into the ground by an amateur kid acting as the owner. The only foreigners who stay at the hostel for more than a day do so by mistake, and the rest are either locals working at this hostel or the others. Some of these guys are good people and resent what Charlie his kind do because it gives them and the places they work and live a bad name that can harm their future employment.

Charlie was never supposed to be allowed in, but he was. He is a professional thief that the staff woman at the counter and Roberto, the alleged owner, admitted with no ID at all. It is possible they knew Charlie and allowed his adventure because that is the flavor of Mexican culture as promised in the their own description. Roberto's own attitude admitting yes, we should have held his ID, but no, we are not responsible for the computer theft is this very FLAVOR OF MEXICAN CULTURE that Playa del Carmen does not want to have, nor does the state of Quintana Roo. From observing the interaction of the older woman who let Charlie into the hostel with no ID, it is probably accurate to say that she is Roberto's mother or possibly aunt and the one that holds the lease to the building. She pretends not to understand any English, but her eyes give her away.

How Does Dangerous Scam Hostels Like Tequilita Get Away With It?
How Scam Hostels Do It
Here in Playa del Carmen, Mexico anyone can open a hostel who has a paint brush and a little paint and can spell the word and paint it on the side of the building or a sign. Just look at the photo of Tequilita Hostel in this site and you will understand. Tequilita Hostel is the poster child for everything bad in a hostel and yet it is promoted by the hostel sites like hostelworld.com and hostels.com and allowed to operate by the local government.

The below advertising for hostelworld.com in red was copied right off their sign up page for hostels. The first sentence, Why list your property with Hostelworld.com? The answer to this question is simple because hostelworld.com will take anyone as a hostel and places like Tequilita Hostel in Playa del Carmen is nothing more than a hotel for local thieves to prey on foreigners. A perfect situation, bring the foreigners right inside the hostel with no security and no lockers in the rooms and the ones in the office that can be opened in 30 seconds with no noise by a thief. What a perfect set up. Hostelworld.com does not care because they get their ten percent commission plus ten dollar annual fee from all guest and claim no responsibility.

Hostelworld.com gets their cut up front, the thieves get their cut from stolen property and hostels like Tequilita Hostel gets the room rent from both the thieves and the victims and possibly a cut of the theft property when sold and the foreigner gets ripped off. No problem in that because there is always another victim to play the Playa del Carmen, hostelworld.com scam on. The hostel manager just says not my problem. Tequilita Hostel is proof positive that hostelworld.com and hostels.com allows anyone to post themselves as a hostel and conduct business through their site regardless of the conditions at the alleged hostel. Tequilita is a dangerous place for any of your valuables and in my opinion your physical safety as well. Tequilita Hostel is proof positive it is not possible for hostelworld.com or hostels.com to have done any real checks on Tequilita Hostel at all for if they had the place would have been DELETED. Every thing bad that has happened there and will happen to others is hostelworld.com and hostels.com and the government of Playa del Carmen's liability because they actively promoted or allow such a place that is a complete fraud and a den for thieves and possibly worst to work out of and prey on foreigners from.

Hostel Reservation Ratings Scam
The comments left by previous guests at hostels on all the hostel reservation sites are very suspicious, especially when you see 100% ratings for any place. I have stayed at hostels all over the world and none deserve the rating of 100%. Even the luxury hotels do not deserve a 100%. Yet throughout the ratings given by alleged guests there are a lot of hostels that are given five stars.

Hostels commit fraud in one or all of 4 different ways. The first method, hostels can have one of their own employees or friends make a reservation at the hostel and leave an evaluation that is often a 100%. The second method, to add an international flare or credibility the manager or owner pays for the evaluation from young foreigners of low morals offering them free nights or giving them drinks at the bar while telling them his sad story about previous alleged backpackers abusive evaluations. The fraudsters leave 100% ratings usually with very little explanation other than a great party place where everyone was wonderful. To read an evaluation allegedly written by a European or American that gives a hostel a high rating adds some credence to the evaluations. The truth is that ratings in the 90% to 100% range are false or charmed out of foolish young people with either drinking or drug problems and low moral standards. The third method, is having the the hostel booking company wipe all ratings clean so the ratings on the website state, Not Yet Rated to give it the appearance that the hostel is new. This wipes clean all the bad evidence so the hostel can hide all their past bad behavior. The fourth method, is for the hostel to complain to the hostel booking company and say the bad rating of a certain person was unjust and then to prove this by having a bunch of paid off guest (methods 1 and 2 from above) leave very high ratings so the booking company will eliminate the bad rating.

Such are the many methods used by places like Tequilita Hostel, with the most recent on hostelworld.com, a 100%. The day after I left the hostel, all the ratings on both hostelworld.com and hostels.com were erased and returned to NOT YET RATED as if the hostel was new and just starting out. The past has been deleted. They did this because I told then that a series of websites on their activity would be published. Just trying to cover their asses because they know the 100% ratings are fraud.

I have been approached by hostel managers to write false reports at their hostel, which I mostly ignore, but one in Egypt really annoyed me, so I wrote one of my few reports ever given in response to it. My detailed account of Cecilia Hostel in Cairo, Egypt, has already been erased and – you guessed it – replaced with 100% ratings from two low life boys from my own country of America. The evidence is over-whelming that the self-rating of the hostels through the booking sites are rift with fraud to the extent that hostels closed for renovation with no guests whatsoever continuing to get top ratings.

What I have learned from further investigation after the theft of my computer, by staying at other hostels and talking to locals and also foreign victims is that Playa del Carmen is infested with thieves which the local people and government turn a blind eye to because in their view it is not their problem. It is very much their problem because the world economy is imploding now and the foreign Caucasian tourist who have the money are disappearing fast as I will show in detail in many other web sites on Playa del Carmen (see list of sites at end of this one). Hostelworld.com and hostels.com and the city government of Playa del Carmen and the local people themselves are all guilty for allowing this beach town to become a den of thieves that come out at night like cockroaches when the lights are turned off. Read my site on Tequilita Hostel in Playa del Carmen and ask yourself, how many other places are out there like Tequilita Hostel that Hostelworld promotes. I can assure you it is not the only one in Playa del Carmen.

           The Future of Playa del Carmen
I invest and I have been touring the entire state of Quintana Roo and every street in Playa del Carmen Centro and outer regions and I can tell that the world economic collapse is beginning to take a serious bite into the city. Formerly occupied rows of high-end business offices are all empty with RENTA signs on them and the VENTA signs have all increased in the past few months I have been here. The foreign Caucasian tourist crowds have also shrunk, and not only with the end of the season but also because the bubble is popping and the tourist industry in the next 12 months will implode world-wide. If Playa does not want to return to nothing then it better begin cleaning house now which means getting rid of places like Tequilita Hostel or forking compensation to those injured by them and completely renovating and finishing the place to the basic requirements for a hostel.

I know exactly what Playa will look like in the next two years for I have been to a place just like it four months ago. Dahab, Egypt, on the Red Sea, is the same place as Playa, and Dahab is on death's door because ALL foreign money fled the country a year ago during the first Arab Spring uprising. Dahab has the same 5th Avenue built just like Playa for tourists and the same dive shops, restaurants, hostels, and small hotels as Playa, they are twin cities, but Dahab is dead. What's alive is a small core beach area left that can be walked in five minutes. The massive developments behind the beach are being consumed by the desert. This is Playa's future, unless it gets it's head out of it's ass to take action now, and that means clean out the thieves and other riff-raft in the Centro area. The locals know who they are and so do the police.

Charlie may have gotten a few dollars for my computer, but the cost of it to Tequilita Hostel for deliberate participation and for Playa del Carmen's city government and tourist council for allowing this hostel to run will be very expensive when the families of tourists and backpackers stop arriving in the coming world economic crunch. Tequilita Hostel needs to be dealt with by the authorities in Playa or it will infect the rest of the town which up to this point has retained a good name on the Mayan Riviera. If backpackers just avoid the place it will collapse on it's own but it should be the city that takes action in setting basic standards so such places never show up again.

                        Other Sites
Further websites will be directed to this issue and a close look at what is really going on in Playa Del Carmen for those of you considering visiting or possibly living or investing here. Until you read these sites and seriously look at the large issues over which foremost should be security then you may want to reconsider future travel plans. When bad things happen here you will not get any help from the local government or businesses, you are on your own. The below sites are currently active and are being refined in an on going process. Most will be consolidated under an main URL in the future for all sites regarding Playa del Carmen and the hostels there, so watch for the change over.

http://futureofplayadelcarmen.yolasite.com
http://playadelcarmenhostelreviews.webstarts.com
www.scamhostelsplayadelcarmen.2itb.com
http://tequilitahostel.yolasite.com
http://playadelcarmenhostels.weebly.com/
http://playadelcarmenhostels.webstarts.com
http://mayanrivierarealestate.yolasite.com
http://backpackersplayadelcarmen.webstarts.com/
www.hostelsplayadelcarmen.2itb.com
http://realestateplayadelcarmen.yolasite.com
http://tresmundoshostelreview.weebly.com/
http://playadelcarmenhostels.weebly.com/

If you have your own unpleasant stories regarding Playa del Carmen please send them to the specially created email given below. Please no hate mail or vulgarity and write it as if you would want it published on this or other sites. No names will ever be published. Thank you.

yourplayastory@hushmail.com

Dangerous Hostels in Playa del Carmen
Quintana Roo Mexico

Tequilita Hostel
Where You Check In But Your Belongings
May Never Check Out