Unfiltered Story #222120

(Some variation on this conversation happens every week or two at my hotel:)
Guest: I don’t have any kind of payment method, but I have my mom/uncle/boyfriend/second-cousin-twice-removed on the phone and they can give you their card number!
Us: I’m sorry, but we have to have a card physically present in order to process a transaction.
Guest: But I’m stranded here! I don’t have any money or transportation and I’ve got (insert friend or relation of your choice) willing to pay!
Us: I’m sorry, but for fraud prevention purposes, we can’t use a card without the owner’s authorization.
Guest: They’ll send you a picture of the card and their ID!
Us: That still doesn’t prove that the owner of the card is the one authorizing the transaction. If they could maybe Western Union you the funds, or use a money-transfer app…
Guest: That can’t happen because they don’t understand technology/don’t want to leave the house/have no functioning limbs/ etc. You all are just heartless! I’ll never stay here again! *storms out*

(A few things about this:
1. Our hotel rarely has rates below $150/night. It’s not exactly a last-resort kind of place if you just really, REALLY need a bed for the night.
2. We are not located in any kind of city center – we’re actually sort of out of the way. So I always wonder how people with supposedly no transportation even got here in the first place.
3. We USED to allow people to do this sort of thing with an authorization form – basically they would send us said ID and credit card in a fax, along with a signed form. We stopped allowing it specifically because so many of those transactions were returned as fraud.)