I work in a hotel. This guy walks in on a Thursday.

Guy: “Hi, I’m [Guy]. I am building a house that isn’t going to be finished for a year. I need your best room and lowest rate because I’m building a house.”

Me: “That’s great! I’ll forward you to our sales director; she can assist you.”

A few days later, he returns.

Guy: “Hi, remember me? I’m building a house.”

Me: “Yes, sir, I remember you. How can I help you?”

Guy: “Well, I am checking for a year. I talked to your sales director, and she said it is okay to pay daily.”

Red flag number one!

I listen to him tell me how great he is and how great this house is — I don’t know if I mentioned it, but he is building a house — and I get him checked in. All the while, I am curious as to how I can check in a thirty-day stay (that’s how we do long-term check-ins) with only one night’s payment. I do it and don’t say anything.

All the while my new trainee, a young kid, is falling right into this man’s bulls*** trap of stories and lies, and now the two are fast friends and talking at the desk, which is super annoying.

The next day, Friday, is super busy — seventy-five check-ins with a trainee. Halfway through my night, the phone rings, and it is [Guy].

Guy: “Hello, I was just on the phone with your corporate office and they issued me 60,000 [Reward Program] credits. I need you to apply those to tonight’s payment.”

Me: *Politely* “That isn’t possible, sir. You can call and make a reservation starting tomorrow using the credits to pay for that reservation.”

Guy: *Very angry* “I can’t do that! I need them to apply to tonight because my bank, [Nationally-Known Bank], is currently having a network glitch where all cards are coming back declined!”

I laugh out loud on the phone. I know that he has no money and that he is going to be one of those guests who can’t admit it.

Me: “I’m not sure what I can do. I guess you’ll have to wait until [Bank] fixes the… glitch… because I can’t issue you a new key until today is paid for.”

Guy: “That’s okay. I have keys.”

Me: “Yes, but they don’t work. I had to lock you out because we still have to receive money for tonight before I can let you back in.”

Guy: “This is crazy. I am building a house!”

The next morning arrives, and he hasn’t come back to the hotel. He finally comes in complaining that he had to sleep in his car because of the “glitch” at DBSL and that we wouldn’t give him a key. He pays for the previous night and tonight, securing him until tomorrow (Sunday) at noon.

So, here we are on Monday morning. I eagerly relay all of this information to [Sales Director], who is mad that [Guy] lied. She never agreed to daily payment, and he never signed his contract. Normally, for long-term guests, we collect a week’s pay minimum in order to honor special rates. [Sales Director] is going on and on about how [Guy] lied during the initial conversation, how she is going to not honor his rate now because he did not sign the contract in a timely manner, and how he isn’t going to be allowed to pay daily. She then turns back around with excitement on her face and says:

Sales Director: “Did you know he is building a house?”

Me: “I had no idea!” *Laughs* “I did know because he’s interjected it into every conversation 100 times.”

She then proceeds to contact [Guy] in his room and let him know that because he did not sign the contract and he is having payment issues, we will no longer be able to honor the rate they verbally agreed upon. He gets very upset.

Guy: “I am just going to have to find another place to stay.”

End of the whole problem. RIGHT?

Not right.

A few hours later, the phone rang, and it was our corporate guest help line. They had [Guy] on the phone, and he wanted a complete refund for all his reservations for the last week because he was unsatisfied. He had a laundry list full of complaints. There were children running around unattended, his bed was not made properly, the bathroom was dirty, we wouldn’t honor the agreed-upon rate, the staff was rude, etc. (You can insert more ridiculous complaints on your own because he probably tried them.)

I calmly addressed the guest help operator and let her know the entire scenario and the most important part: that he was building a house. She said the story she had been given was grossly different, all except for the fact that he was building a house. She mentioned that he was particularly upset about the rate withdrawal.

The bottom line is that he didn’t sign the contract nor did he pay in a timely manner. That gave our property all the right to nullify the offer. I couldn’t deal with hearing, “I am building a house,” for an entire year. I really don’t even think it was true. I think that’s the scam he probably runs from property to property. He also probably gets away with it.

I am just really happy we dodged the house-building bullet. Ugh. Sometimes I wonder why I do this job!

CONTENT WARNING: Death

I was working in a hotel when a murder happened in one of the rooms. It was a well-reputed hotel that had mostly a corporate clientele. Of course, the guests disturbed by the events and the police presence during the night were compensated; after all, they were there to sleep after and/or before a day working and were kept from that.

But what made me lose all hope in humanity were all the people with reservations in the following weeks who called and made the same request.

Guest: “I have a reservation there on [future date]. I was wondering if I could get a discount because of the murder that just happened there?”

Their reservations were in no way impacted by the events; they basically wanted a discount because a young woman was killed in her room. The incident had nothing to do with the hotel; we were just the establishment where they decided to meet that day.

Of course, no discounts were given to those who weren’t in the hotel when the events happened, but three years later, it still makes my blood boil that people would use someone’s death to save money.

I was a front desk manager at my hotel. To make a very long story short, some guests were caught using fraudulent credit cards — among other things, apparently, though the cards were what I knew about for sure — and were intercepted trying to leave the hotel by police. (It was a LOT of stolen cards.)

I was relieved to see them go, as they had been a pain in my rear because we wouldn’t allow them to order from the restaurant when their card was declined, and they claimed we were discriminating against them for being a same-sex couple. (Half of the front desk staff was part of the LGBT+ community.) It was a whole production getting them finally caught, but the most ridiculous part to me was the woman who stormed up to the desk as the men were being questioned outside.

Guest: *In the most offended tone you can imagine* “Ex-cuse me! Could someone explain to me why there are people getting arrested outside this hotel?”

I was already fried from dealing with the couple so, admittedly, my response was somewhat less than tactful.

Me: “…I’m sorry, ma’am, would you prefer they hadn’t been caught?”

Luckily, she just huffed and stomped off, apparently not having a response to that. Sorry, people, there’s no criminal repellent we can spray to keep every single shady guest away. We can only do something about them once they’re here!

Bonus post-script: the couple that was arrested had the gall to post a negative review online, in which they claimed that the hotel had called the police on them with absolutely no evidence and that they had been released without charges because they had done nothing wrong. (We didn’t even call the police; the owner of one of the stolen cards did.)

The next day, there was a news spot aired about how the couple had, in fact, been charged with a rather extensive list of crimes.

An American hotel guest comes up to me at our buffet restaurant.

Customer: “I want to speak to a manager about the eggs in your buffet! They’re rotten!”

Me: “Ma’am, those are pickled onions.”

Customer: “I don’t care what kind of bird laid them, they’re gross!”

Related:
Putting Themselves Into A Bit Of A Pickle, Part 2
Putting Themselves Into A Bit Of A Pickle

It was a slow night at the hotel, and I answered the phone.

Caller: “How much are your rooms?”

Me: “It’s [total] after tax, and there’s a $100 deposit we put on your credit card for incidentals.”

Caller: “Since when have you been doing a deposit?”

Me: “Uh, the $100 deposit has been since August or September. Before that, we were doing a $50 deposit for about a year.”

Caller: “Well, I’ve never paid any deposit there.”

Me: “Okay.”

Caller: “I’ve stayed there a bunch of times in the last year. No one asked me for a deposit.”

Me: “Okay.”

I guess at this point he expected me to say, “Well, gee whiz, complete stranger on the other end of the line, I guess because you say so, I don’t have to charge a deposit.”

Caller: “I was just there twice last month, and no one said anything about a deposit!”

Me: “Well, I guess no one was doing their job, then.”

He hung up before I could say anything else which might be attributable to the obvious sarcasm in my voice when I made the last statement. There are folks who we waive the deposit for, but most of them are contractors who pay a set rate or people who have been coming to the hotel forever and would have led the conversation by telling me who they were or addressed me by name when I answered the phone.

It just felt like a variation of the people who say things like, “I stayed in every hotel in the known universe last night and none of them asked for a credit card and they all let me pay with pocket lint.”