We stayed in Hotel Atithi(3 star), Agra for a couple of days in July 2006. It is probably the worst place that one could stay while visiting Agra. We reached the hotel after a long day of sightseeing and shopping in Agra. We checked in and we made sure all the items were brought from the car to the elevator. The hotel staff offered to bring our baggage to our rooms. We accepted the offer. Since the elevator could not fit everything, they asked us to go to the rooms and said they would bring the baggage in the next trip. Two boys brought our luggage to the room in 5 minutes. We tipped them and didn’t bother to check whether all the things had reached the room. First of all, we were surprised that the rooms were bad - bathroom doors didn’t close properly, flush didn’t work in both the rooms, and there were no towels. They had not even replaced the soaps used by the previous guests. The hostels (choultries) in Uttaranchal were so much better and cleaner than this claimed 3 star hotel. We didn’t complain because we were going to be there only for a night. While getting ready to visit the Taj next day morning, we discovered that a bag with expensive (Rs.3000) and brand new shoes was missing. This was the 10th hotel that we stayed in during this long North India travel and nowhere else did we lose even a small item. We went to the front desk to checkout of the hotel and enquired about the missing bag. The first thing that shocked us was the attitude of the staff. He was not just un-helpful, he was outright rude. He argued that it was our mistake that we didn’t check when the boys carried the baggage the previous night. We told him we were not blaming that the shoe bag was stolen but it may have been misplaced. We requested that he should check with the boys. He argued that it was a 3 star hotel and refused to admit the mistake. His attitude was that we were not the kind of guests who stay in 3 star hotels. That language infuriated us. We tried to explain that we travel a lot and have stayed in hostels to no frill hotels to 5 star hotels around the world. We told him that service matters more than the luxury. We never experienced this kind of service before even in the smallest of the hotels. After an hour of argument, he agreed to check and let us know in a couple of hours. We returned after visiting the Taj and nothing had been done. They tried their best to ignore us. After waiting for another 30 minutes, he started arguing the same things again. Then we said we wanted to talk to the owner. He again rudely said the owner was in the next room and we could go and see him if we wanted. We talked to the owner and told him what all had happened. More than the lost item, we felt beaten by the attitude of the staff. The owner wrote down our problems with a poker face and just tried to get rid of us as fast as he could. He promised that he would look into the matter and contact us the same evening. We never heard from him even to apologize. Avoid this hotel if you don’t want to spoil your Agra visit. There are many better and cheaper hotels just around the same area.