I know it’s been done, but there are enough bad customers to fill a thousand volumes. This thread, dredged up a horrible memory that has been fermenting in my mind for years. It’s time to tell it to the world: My worst customer. It’s long, but it gets pretty specatular.
It was a hot, quiet evening in the middle of July. I was working part time as a motel desk clerk. Managing a small motel is a 24 hour a day job, and it is usually done by a husband-wife team who live in a small apartment on the premisis. My worked at another motel, and his manager were away for a long period of time. He was put in charge of the motel and paid hansomly for it. However, he ran in to an emergency and had to leave with little notice. After clearing it with his bosses (who knew me) he called on me to fill his place and watch the motel for a few days.
Although it was the height of tourist season in a tourist town, things were going pretty well. The motel was booked up, so I usually dealt with all of the reservations by mid-afternoon and could relax a bit in the evening. But one evening it got to be midnight- when I usually start closing up the books so I could be up at six AM to start the morning stuff- and there were still six reservations left to come in. Finally, a few cars pulled in a group of six people got out.
They came in and asked for their three rooms.
I had six rooms for them.
One of them, lets call him Mr. Insane, had three rooms under his name. He had two other couples with him, who each had a room under their own name. After looking at the booksit became apparent that Mr. Insane had organized this get together. He had reserved a room for himself and the two rooms for his friends. He didn’t communicate this to his friends and proceeded to make their own reservations. There were two extra reservations. The program I use records and timestamps every single time a reservation is even looked at, so I was pretty sure of what happened. I knew when he had called, who took the call (the owner) and what kinds of questions he asked during the call.
Mr. Insane claimed he never made the extra reservations.
Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but a reservation is a reservation and it was the height of summer. I’d turned literally dozens of people away from this room all day- every hotel in town was completely full and walk-in room rates were triple or even quadruple their normal rates. All customers are warned they must have 24 hours advanced notice to cancel a reservation and not be charged. Even a single room’s rent at this time simply represents too high a percentage of the motel’s yearly income to let it go empty.
In other words, somebody was going to have to pay for those two rooms, and I certainly didn’t make them. I told him all evidence pointed to the fact that he did make these reservations and that it was standard to charge the full amount in these situations, but I could call a manager and what I could do. When he realized he was going to be responsible for these reservations he made, he changed his story and said he cancelled his extra reservations when his friends made theirs.
I know this isn’t true. His account showed exactly one activity- the reservations being made. Even if somehow a mistake got made in cancelling them, there would still be a record of the reservation being looked at. There is no way a reservation could even be mentioned in that motel without it being pulled up and a record being made. I politely told him that.
Then he said he intended to cancel them. I said it was pretty unfortunate that he hadn’t actually gone through with cancelling them, and that I would have to call a manager and see if there was another way to handle it besides charging him in full for them. All this time I was working hard to be nice, calm and make him happy.
He wouldn’t listen. He said it was late, some members of his party were disabled and needed a restroom, and he needed to unload his car as soon as possible. He also ranted a bit about how he had stayed at numerous other motels and it had never taken him this long to check in. I tried to explain that it only took so long because he had made these extra reservations and that we were still going to be talking until we figured out how to get these two rooms paid for. He said he didn’t care and that checking in should only take five minutes.
At this point it still wasn’t clear what rooms they actually intended to occupy, and he was too busy telling me he was going to report me to corporate managers to answer my questions. So I offered to settle up on the rooms they actually wanted, let them unload, and have them to come in a few minutes so that we could figure out what to do about the two extra rooms. I tried to show them a list of the different room configurations and rates they had rented so they could pick which ones they wanted to keep, but he said “I don’t care, just get us in a room”. So thats what I did. I rented them the first three rooms on the list and sent them on their way, reminding them that they were still responsible for the extra rooms and that they absolutely must come back and clear things up that night as soon as they were unpacked.
Well, they unloaded and then took off somewhere. An hour passed, and they still wern’t back. I couldn’t keep watch all night to make sure they didn’t sneak back in to their rooms and try to stiff me, so I did the only thing I could- I cancelled their keycards so they’d have to come back to the office.
In the meantime, I rented one of the extra rooms to a walk-in customer and got permission to charge only a fifty dollar cancellation fee on the second room.
Soon after, they came in, angry that their key didn’t work. I told them why their key didn’t work- because I told them that they could not stay if they did not clear up these charges. I told them what I thought was good news- that they were only responsible for fifty dollars. This wasn’t good enough for Mr. Insane, so I put him on the phone with my bosses and decided to let them hash it out.
While he was on the phone, a young tired couple wandered in. I said “Please tell me you are looking for a room”. They said they were. I glanced at the reservation, quoted them the price, and they took the room. I looked over at the group and said “Well, I sold the rooms, you guys are off the hook, and I guess we can all go to sleep.”
Not so fast.
Mr. Insane said “Wait a minute, why was the price you quoted them ten dollars less than what you quoted me?” I said gamely explained that hotel prices change from minute to minute depending on when you make the reservation and what source it comes from. Theres some computer algorithm that looks at past occupancy and spits out a price. At any given time there are people staying next to you that have paid much less and much more for the same room. Thats just how it works.
Mr Insane: “Well, I want the price you gave her.”
I said there was simply no way to do that, since he had already paid for his room, and had refused to review my list of rooms and prices available to him earlier. He had his chance to choose that same room, and he opted out of it.
Furthermore, he claimed he had never made that reservation in the first place, and that in any event he had also cancelled it. I told him that we can’t be held to quotes for reservations that were apparently never made and were then cancelled. And I gently reminded him that it was his good fortune that that couple showed up and snatched up that room.
He pressed on, so I caved and said I’d ask my managers if it was possible to alter the price he paid and let him know in the morning, but not to get his hopes up.
A few minutes later, I went to deliver a rollaway to one of his rooms. I sincerly apologized for how aggravating the check-in process was, and that I hoped they get a good nights sleep and enjoy their vacation. He replied “I’m still waiting to hear about the ten bucks.”
I was gone by the next morning, but I left a very professional letter for the clerk to give them apologizing for the experience and explaining why we couldn’t refund them the ten dollars.
He apparently ranted and raved and said “You’ll hear from my credit card company.”
Motherfucker. We’ve got twp signed pieces of paper saying “The rate for this room is $XXX.XX and I consent to pay this amount.” plus a credit card receipt where he accepts the charges. I’d like to see him try.
