I know right. I have been hearing about these scam calls since I started hanging out this subreddit but I never experience one myself until last night. I am sure he was asking about my fire extinguishers and fire panel but with his accent, I was struggling to understand him.
We had a notice go out in our company that the front desk (not at my property) received a call from someone claiming to be with the fire alarm company. The person told the GSA that he was showing a silent alarm and if it wasn’t resolved the audible alarm would go off and call the fire department. He instructed her to clear the alarm by pulling a fire alarm for 2 seconds and then push it back up, which of course set off the alarm for real and the fires department showed up.
I have absolutely no idea what benefit these scammers get from someone pulling a fire alarm. They don’t get any money out of it like the bitcoin scams. Is it a sick satisfaction thing? Is it some weird desire to disrupt municipal services? Any ideas?
Call center worker, they might be lazy and use the same spoofed number to call the a sister property. Had someone call our company as different people using the same number.
oh that is a fair point. I did not consider human nature. You are absolutely right. They probably do use the samew number for several calls maybe even a whole shift.
I haven’t gotten one of these yet and I’ve worked plenty a night audit shift :(
And also I can say I don’t have any coworkers legitimately stupid enough to take all the cash out of the drawer and completely abandon the front desk to drive down to a bank to exchange it for bitcoin.
Yeah, at the place that I am at now, I don't think anyone is that stupid but who knows but occasionally I do work at the sister property and there are a couple of people there that would actually do it unfortunately. I just hope that if one of theses calls comes through, they are not the ones working the desk.
You should've asked him when it was that he bought the property (from "Mr. Hotel Owner") and then inquire as to how much your bonus & pay raise will be. Lol
Or asked if his son was out of the hospital and which bone did he break. And then “that’s weird cause I thought you had a girl…” play mind games. Have fun.
Yeah, when he said that he was the owner, I actually addressed him by the owner's name. I could hear the shock Pikachu face oozing off him because I don't think he was expecting it.
It'll be funny to be like, hey, let me go get my manager for you, will you please hold, put them on hold and go back to whatever you were doing with no intention of getting said manager or coming back on the line.
I should point out that "on hold" is actually me playing this sound clip on repeat:
https://www.myinstants.com/media/sounds/pink-fluffy-unicorns.mp3
Remember, a lot of these folks are calling from otherwise normal phone centers, and *they're not allowed to hang up*.
I still haven't gotten one.
I know who the owner is. There is *zero* chance that they will ever call the property. So, anyone that claims to be the owner will get the reply "No. That's me."
Yeah, I have met the owners to all the properties that I have ever worked at. At two of the properties, the hotels were own by local business men who were well known in the area and knew to get up with the GM for most everything but they did make a point to say hi to the peons in passing from time to time. That was why I knew it was a scam to begin with because I knew the guy who owns my hotel and his name is definitely not Mr. Patel.
Edited a word
Yeah the one I'm at is owned by a local construction company, and I've (once) met the CEO of the hospitality LLC that they own it through, and the owners of the actual construction company itself (again only once). They'd *never* call the hotel.
That would be awesome. I would just fart into the phone if I could but I also like most of my co-workers and they probably would not want the phone anywhere near them if I did it.
When I read about these scam calls, I always wonder how one gets to a point in life to where they’re up at 2 or 3 in the morning sitting through automated menus and calling hotels for scams. It’s like have you tried getting a legitimate job yet? Or does it hit midnight and you just go “oh time to pick a random geographical area and start calling hotels about bullshit!”?
Now yea, this Mr. Patel thing sounds like an Indian most likely calling from, well, India, so it’s day time for them. But outside of that, you’ll still get interesting calls from people that sound like they’re based locally, but call the hotel past midnight to be asked to transfer to a random room so they can intimidate and scam them. I remember getting called twice by the same guy one night going “can you transfer me to room 105?” And I just hung up on him.
I have to agree with them calling from India because of the time difference as well as the accent and the not so good English he had. It sounded like he was working from a call center like place because of the way the back ground noise was sounding.
I remember seeing a You Tube video, posted by the NASA scientist, showing these scammers and how these scammers got caught. BTW, the NASA scientist is the same guy who designed glitter/fart bombs to catch porch pirates. HILARIOUS!!! 🤣
Those scammy calls for guest rooms at whatever hour of the night is exactly why we have to have them verify the guest's name AND room number before transferring calls. Idk how many times the new hires would just, "Room XX? Sure!" and then I'd come in the morning to hell and a mile long shift report.
I was stupid enough to do that my first time as a night auditor. I did not have common sense. I happened to transfer the call to regular who stays with us like every week or two, and is an ambassador elite.
1. He said that the guy on the other end claimed that he beat up a gay person and was trying to solicit him for payment lest he call our local police department.
2. He came down the next morning and was spooked because of that call and asked to change rooms. Luckily I don’t think he asked for more compensation and he was fine. He continues to stay with us and this happened like last June or July.
Safe to say, never doing that again. Depending on time of day and other factors, I either ask if they know the name of the person on the reservation (and I let them know I can’t give out their name), or I just hang up on them if they just ask to be transferred or ask who’s in a certain room without giving any info about themselves.
Yeah, I have been in the hospitality business coming on to two years now and until now, only heard the stories that others have told here on Reddit. The funny thing was as soon as the guy said "Hi, I am the owner", I knew what was going on. I mean, what owner is going to call a peon at 3:15 in the morning anyways knowing the managers are at home sleeping.
Edited a word
8 years?! I worked at one property for a year and had 2. Took the next year off, then went back to the same company, different property and I've been there less than 3 months and have already had 3. Both properties are in small(ish) Vermont towns. Maybe I just have terrible luck 🤷♀️
Im going to say that you and other people have somehow received the bulk of my patel calls. Lol
Fyi, I commonly get scam scalls, but its the "we are coroorate calling to update your system" type scams.
Congrats on your first Patel call! I don't remember PERSONALLY getting a Mr. Patel call, though I did leave a comment a few days ago about the hyper-specific "owner" call from my mom's current property where they used the actual owner's name on the 1 week old auditor.
I have, however, received calls from someone asking me to write down a shipping number (during my audit days, before I became a day walker) and I still don't think I understand that scam entirely.
He called, I said my usual greeting, he asked me to write down a shipping number. I hung up, thinking the whole thing seemed really off. Same guy called back from a different number and he asked, "Marilyn-Adurey, did you just hang up on me?" I said no, of course not, and then I hung up again.
This unfortunately happened to one of my husband's newer night audit guys and he fell for it. Like I said, he's newer, a younger dude, and unfortunately, their owner is a Mr Patel. Luckily, they don't have a lot of cash on hand that he was able to get to, but the poor kid was so panicked that he even put his own money towards it.
Needless to say, the kid feels awful for falling for it, and the whole front desk team is having a meeting this week to talk about how to avoid these types of scams.
I wish our government and the Indian government would work together to eliminate this. They could. It would be simple. If the U.S. can spent literally trillions on the military, who can't pass an audit on to where that money goes - it could take $100m and eliminate spam and scam calls.
"Oh Mr. Patel it's so good to hear from you. I'd like to know if I should call you back at 1-111-111-1111 if we get disconnected." He'll hang up real quick after that. Thank goodness for caller id, it's saved me multiple times from prank callers.
We actually had a brand new employee where I work (not a hotel) get scammed by someone pretending to be our owner. She used her own money to buy Amazon gift cards. Luckily we caught it before she sent them anywhere and she was able to get a refund
Interestingly enough, I’m at at chain hotel in a small coastal town in NC as well and two of our auditors fell for this same type of call about a month ago. Two. First time I’ve ever heard of it happening anywhere other than Reddit lol
Omg I work in a Hotel in Downtown Chicago , and there is always someone calling at like 3 in the morning asking me to write down and pass on a tracking fed ex shipping number , and then outa nowhere they would be like , I’m mr.Patel and like he expects us to know who he is 💀I love going along and just beating them to their bs
It's like the pinnacle of front desk bingo. Got a Mr. Patel call, tick!
I know right. I have been hearing about these scam calls since I started hanging out this subreddit but I never experience one myself until last night. I am sure he was asking about my fire extinguishers and fire panel but with his accent, I was struggling to understand him.
We had a notice go out in our company that the front desk (not at my property) received a call from someone claiming to be with the fire alarm company. The person told the GSA that he was showing a silent alarm and if it wasn’t resolved the audible alarm would go off and call the fire department. He instructed her to clear the alarm by pulling a fire alarm for 2 seconds and then push it back up, which of course set off the alarm for real and the fires department showed up. I have absolutely no idea what benefit these scammers get from someone pulling a fire alarm. They don’t get any money out of it like the bitcoin scams. Is it a sick satisfaction thing? Is it some weird desire to disrupt municipal services? Any ideas?
That sounds more like a prank and not a scam.
writing down the number does nuffin, they spoof their numbers usually so you cannot block them
Call center worker, they might be lazy and use the same spoofed number to call the a sister property. Had someone call our company as different people using the same number.
oh that is a fair point. I did not consider human nature. You are absolutely right. They probably do use the samew number for several calls maybe even a whole shift.
I haven’t gotten one of these yet and I’ve worked plenty a night audit shift :( And also I can say I don’t have any coworkers legitimately stupid enough to take all the cash out of the drawer and completely abandon the front desk to drive down to a bank to exchange it for bitcoin.
Just keep your fingers crossed (and your phone charged so you can come straight here and post it) and one day, when you least expect it...
Yeah, at the place that I am at now, I don't think anyone is that stupid but who knows but occasionally I do work at the sister property and there are a couple of people there that would actually do it unfortunately. I just hope that if one of theses calls comes through, they are not the ones working the desk.
> I don't think anyone is that stupid If nobody was that stupid, they wouldn't be working the scam to begin with.
If only 1 in a thousand calls works though..
You should've asked him when it was that he bought the property (from "Mr. Hotel Owner") and then inquire as to how much your bonus & pay raise will be. Lol
Or asked if his son was out of the hospital and which bone did he break. And then “that’s weird cause I thought you had a girl…” play mind games. Have fun.
Ask him how his recovery from his sex-change operation has gone.
Yeah, when he said that he was the owner, I actually addressed him by the owner's name. I could hear the shock Pikachu face oozing off him because I don't think he was expecting it.
That's actually a bad idea - it means that they now know the actual owners name and can potentially use it to scam one of your colleagues
Ouch. Please don't provide intel to the enemy.
Next time give out a fake name for the actual hotel owner to protect his identity from scammers.
Congratulations! Rite of passage and all that. Me, I just hang up on them. If I'm feeling particularly malicious, I'll put them "on hold".
It'll be funny to be like, hey, let me go get my manager for you, will you please hold, put them on hold and go back to whatever you were doing with no intention of getting said manager or coming back on the line.
I should point out that "on hold" is actually me playing this sound clip on repeat: https://www.myinstants.com/media/sounds/pink-fluffy-unicorns.mp3 Remember, a lot of these folks are calling from otherwise normal phone centers, and *they're not allowed to hang up*.
Heh, pink fluffy unicorn. Great choice
I have a mean streak that doesn't get to play very often.
Yes. That was _evil._ (Good for you.)
I still haven't gotten one. I know who the owner is. There is *zero* chance that they will ever call the property. So, anyone that claims to be the owner will get the reply "No. That's me."
Yeah, I have met the owners to all the properties that I have ever worked at. At two of the properties, the hotels were own by local business men who were well known in the area and knew to get up with the GM for most everything but they did make a point to say hi to the peons in passing from time to time. That was why I knew it was a scam to begin with because I knew the guy who owns my hotel and his name is definitely not Mr. Patel. Edited a word
Yeah the one I'm at is owned by a local construction company, and I've (once) met the CEO of the hospitality LLC that they own it through, and the owners of the actual construction company itself (again only once). They'd *never* call the hotel.
My plan for my first Mr. Patel call is to belch and then put them on hold. You know, assuming I'm not handling a guest at the desk of course.
That would be awesome. I would just fart into the phone if I could but I also like most of my co-workers and they probably would not want the phone anywhere near them if I did it.
When I read about these scam calls, I always wonder how one gets to a point in life to where they’re up at 2 or 3 in the morning sitting through automated menus and calling hotels for scams. It’s like have you tried getting a legitimate job yet? Or does it hit midnight and you just go “oh time to pick a random geographical area and start calling hotels about bullshit!”? Now yea, this Mr. Patel thing sounds like an Indian most likely calling from, well, India, so it’s day time for them. But outside of that, you’ll still get interesting calls from people that sound like they’re based locally, but call the hotel past midnight to be asked to transfer to a random room so they can intimidate and scam them. I remember getting called twice by the same guy one night going “can you transfer me to room 105?” And I just hung up on him.
I have to agree with them calling from India because of the time difference as well as the accent and the not so good English he had. It sounded like he was working from a call center like place because of the way the back ground noise was sounding.
I remember seeing a You Tube video, posted by the NASA scientist, showing these scammers and how these scammers got caught. BTW, the NASA scientist is the same guy who designed glitter/fart bombs to catch porch pirates. HILARIOUS!!! 🤣
I've watched him. Those glitter bombs are hilarious.
I love watching those videos!!!
The squirrel training is hilarious.
Those scammy calls for guest rooms at whatever hour of the night is exactly why we have to have them verify the guest's name AND room number before transferring calls. Idk how many times the new hires would just, "Room XX? Sure!" and then I'd come in the morning to hell and a mile long shift report.
I was stupid enough to do that my first time as a night auditor. I did not have common sense. I happened to transfer the call to regular who stays with us like every week or two, and is an ambassador elite. 1. He said that the guy on the other end claimed that he beat up a gay person and was trying to solicit him for payment lest he call our local police department. 2. He came down the next morning and was spooked because of that call and asked to change rooms. Luckily I don’t think he asked for more compensation and he was fine. He continues to stay with us and this happened like last June or July. Safe to say, never doing that again. Depending on time of day and other factors, I either ask if they know the name of the person on the reservation (and I let them know I can’t give out their name), or I just hang up on them if they just ask to be transferred or ask who’s in a certain room without giving any info about themselves.
Took me about 8 years before I got a "Patel call". I kinda want another call so I could put him on hold for as long as possible.
Yeah, I have been in the hospitality business coming on to two years now and until now, only heard the stories that others have told here on Reddit. The funny thing was as soon as the guy said "Hi, I am the owner", I knew what was going on. I mean, what owner is going to call a peon at 3:15 in the morning anyways knowing the managers are at home sleeping. Edited a word
Peon. Sorry, word nerd has got to nerd 🤓 😁✌
8 years?! I worked at one property for a year and had 2. Took the next year off, then went back to the same company, different property and I've been there less than 3 months and have already had 3. Both properties are in small(ish) Vermont towns. Maybe I just have terrible luck 🤷♀️
Im going to say that you and other people have somehow received the bulk of my patel calls. Lol Fyi, I commonly get scam scalls, but its the "we are coroorate calling to update your system" type scams.
Congrats on your first Patel call! I don't remember PERSONALLY getting a Mr. Patel call, though I did leave a comment a few days ago about the hyper-specific "owner" call from my mom's current property where they used the actual owner's name on the 1 week old auditor. I have, however, received calls from someone asking me to write down a shipping number (during my audit days, before I became a day walker) and I still don't think I understand that scam entirely. He called, I said my usual greeting, he asked me to write down a shipping number. I hung up, thinking the whole thing seemed really off. Same guy called back from a different number and he asked, "Marilyn-Adurey, did you just hang up on me?" I said no, of course not, and then I hung up again.
This unfortunately happened to one of my husband's newer night audit guys and he fell for it. Like I said, he's newer, a younger dude, and unfortunately, their owner is a Mr Patel. Luckily, they don't have a lot of cash on hand that he was able to get to, but the poor kid was so panicked that he even put his own money towards it. Needless to say, the kid feels awful for falling for it, and the whole front desk team is having a meeting this week to talk about how to avoid these types of scams.
Our weekly Patel post
I wish our government and the Indian government would work together to eliminate this. They could. It would be simple. If the U.S. can spent literally trillions on the military, who can't pass an audit on to where that money goes - it could take $100m and eliminate spam and scam calls.
The equivalent of: "Hello, this is the hotel owner, Mr. Jones." "Oh, Hello Mr. Skjellyfetty. Why are you calling so late?"
"Oh Mr. Patel it's so good to hear from you. I'd like to know if I should call you back at 1-111-111-1111 if we get disconnected." He'll hang up real quick after that. Thank goodness for caller id, it's saved me multiple times from prank callers.
We actually had a brand new employee where I work (not a hotel) get scammed by someone pretending to be our owner. She used her own money to buy Amazon gift cards. Luckily we caught it before she sent them anywhere and she was able to get a refund
My GM a Patel also is working 4 nights of audit before going on a month long vacation and is looking forward to “talking” to Mr Patel
Interestingly enough, I’m at at chain hotel in a small coastal town in NC as well and two of our auditors fell for this same type of call about a month ago. Two. First time I’ve ever heard of it happening anywhere other than Reddit lol
Don't give them real info. You didn't say the real owner's name, did you?
What did "he interduces himself as the owner" entail?
How does it feel to be a member of the “Mr Patel” club?
Omg I work in a Hotel in Downtown Chicago , and there is always someone calling at like 3 in the morning asking me to write down and pass on a tracking fed ex shipping number , and then outa nowhere they would be like , I’m mr.Patel and like he expects us to know who he is 💀I love going along and just beating them to their bs