That’s Not What Fraud Is

When I started working at a hotel, I made a point to familiarize myself with our website so I would know what was there and what was not, how to do things, and where things were located. It’s much easier to debunk ridiculous claims when I know exactly how our website works. “But it didn’t say that online!” Yes, sir, it did, right here.

And let me just tell you, I get more than enough practice because people are dumb.

[Guest] gives me a call while he’s on speakerphone. His wife is in the room. They’re both b****ing at me. He starts his rant by saying:

Guest: “I went on your website to book a room, I put in all of my payment information, and then when I clicked the button to pay, your site redirected me to a third-party site and charged me an extra $50!”

Oh, for f***’s sake. What would be the point of our website redirecting someone to another site that takes half the money for themselves and only gives the hotel a tiny bit of it?

Me: “Sir, our website doesn’t redirect to any third-party website. It doesn’t even advertise or link to a third-party website.”

Guest: “So, what you’re saying is that you’re committing fraud?!”

Me: “I— Wha— Fraud for what? What exactly do you think is fraudulent here?”

Yeah, I am pissed.

Guest: “I told you I put in my payment information and it redirected me to a third party and charged me $50 more than I agreed to pay. And now you’re lying telling me your site doesn’t do that. That’s fraud. So what, should I call the police now?”

Oh, please do. Call the police. Do it. I dare you.

Me: “And I told you that our site doesn’t work like that. What’s the name on your reservation?”

Guest: “This is fraud!”

Me: “Hey! I asked what name the reservation was under. I can’t tell you anything if I don’t see your reservation.”

He tells me, and I look it up. Sure enough, there it is: prepaid, nonrefundable, noncancelable. Third party. Of course. I look through the change log and routing history and tell him it was booked through [Online Travel Agency] from the start — not our site.

He wants me to cancel, and I tell him he needs to call [Online Travel Agency] to cancel.

Guest: “But we stay there all the time! My wife and I have stayed there literally hundreds of times, and we always book direct!”

And because I’m petty, I later searched for him in our system, clear back to when the hotel first opened. Do you know how many times he’s stayed at our hotel? Hm? Five times. Five times since it opened over six years ago. And three of those five reservations were booked through a third party.

Me: “Okay, well, when you book through a third party, you’re not our customer. You need to call [Online Travel Agency] and ask them about this.”

Guest: “But it was your site that did this!”

Me: “Look, here, I’ll go through the entire booking process on our website just to show that it doesn’t redirect anywhere.”

I start doing that, and he and his wife are both still yelling at me at the same time. I lose it.

Me: “Hey! I told you I’d go through the process myself, but I can’t do anything if you’re both yelling at me.”

Guest: “Sorry, take your time.”

And he shuts up.

I go through the process. No redirects, no links to online travel agencies. I tell him as much, but he still insists he was using our website.

I ask him what the URL was on the website he used. And then I have to explain what a URL is because, apparently, that’s not common knowledge these days.

Guest: “It was [URL].”

Me: “Yeah, that’s not our website. Our website’s URL is [Official Website URL]. You were probably looking at the [Hotel] page on a third-party site.

Guest: “So, what am I supposed to do?”

Me: “Call the online travel agency. That’s all I can tell you.”

Guest: “Can’t you refund me?”

Me: “No, I don’t have your money or your payment information. You didn’t pay us; you paid the agency. That’s the bottom line. You need to call the company you booked it through because I can’t do anything here.”

He grumbled and hung up.