The Only Thing Worse Than A Scammer Is A Racist Scammer

I work for a travel agency. A guest booked a hotel room for six days. She hasn’t checked in yet when she gives us a call.

Guest: “Can you help me, please? There’s an Asian boy in the lobby playing like a ninja, but he’s holding a real kitchen knife, and I guess those are his parents at the front desk checking in.”

The guest’s friend cuts in.

Friend: “And when we try to approach the front desk, he blocks our way and yells in a satanic language. I guess it’s Chinese. Please help!”

A normal rational person, if they were being harassed, would, of course, call for security, not the travel agency because… what are we supposed to do? Shoo them with brochures?!

Me: “You could try approaching security, or at least call the front desk agent.”

Guest: “No! That won’t do! There’s no one here! It’s just the Asian boy.”

So, yeah, she’s caught in a lie. What makes this fun, though, is that I already know they are trying to take advantage of compensation coupons. The original reservation cost $3,500. For this kind of inconvenience, we can issue up to 15% of the booking value to compensate, BUT it is a pay-later reservation. When it’s a pay-later reservation, we are not really obligated to issue a coupon.

Me: “I’ll have to put you on hold while I call the hotel.”

I press my mute button to find the property’s number. While I am on mute for about a minute, I hear the girls giggling and saying they’re getting free beds today. Nahhhh, bruhhh.

I ring the hotel and ask about the boy.

Employee: “No, there is no Asian boy. The only people in the lobby right now are me and two girls standing by the exit.”

Me: “Were they on the phone for the past few minutes?”

Employee: “Yes, and they’re laughing right now.”

I relayed the “situation” to her, and then she opened the girls’ reservation from her system. I heard her call the girls over to confirm their names and heard them confirm their identities. The agent advised me that they would not tolerate such mentality in the hotel, and if the girls were trying to check in and then cancel the reservation, they would be charged the whole booking amount, and if they didn’t use the reservation, they’d be tagged as no-shows and would be penalized the full amount.

The employee shared that her boss was Asian and would not tolerate such behavior. She told me that I could end the call with the girls and advise them that they’d be taken care of by the front desk agent immediately, and she made me put on the documentation that if they called us back, we needed to refer them immediately to the front desk so they could settle things.

I documented it, of course, but I never got to see how it ended. I’m guessing the girls were charged for the amount either way.