‘Who pays for a hotel with cash?’: Customer flies into a rage when he’s informed that he can’t book a hotel without a card

Every day in customer service, you brace yourself for the inevitable onslaught of entitled individuals who storm in with a misguided sense of superiority.

But of all the challenging customers one might encounter, there’s a special place in hell reserved for those who take entitlement to a whole new level. Case in point: this charming fella who flew into a rage when he couldn’t book a hotel room with hard cash. The scene unfolded for TikTok user @koolsheeb, a front desk worker who found herself on the receiving end of the guy’s vicious verbal assault.

The video, captioned “Lmfao this sh*t not for the weak,” shows the man hurling insults and threats at the employee for simply following hotel policy. “You’re ignorant, rude, incompetent. At your job,” he yells. The employee, who remains remarkably composed throughout the ordeal, adds in the video description that the man and his family ended up sleeping outside for the night after threatening and degrading her.

Hotels require credit cards for reservations to protect themselves from liability and to ensure that guests have a means of paying for any incidental charges or damages. It’s a standard practice across the industry, and most people are well aware of it. So, for this man to show up in the middle of the night with his children, expecting to be given a room without a credit card, is not only unreasonable but also incredibly irresponsible.

According to the man’s own account, he had called ahead and specifically asked what he needed to get a room, and was allegedly told to just “show up.” If this is true, then whoever answered the phone is partially to blame for not disclosing the credit card requirement upfront. It’s possible that there was a miscommunication or that the employee on the phone made a mistake, but it still doesn’t excuse the man’s behavior toward the front desk staff.

Many TikTok users who watched the video were appalled by the man’s actions and expressed their support for the employee. Some suggested that she should have called the authorities, while others questioned if it was the man’s first time staying at a hotel, given his apparent lack of awareness of such a common policy.

While most hotels have this policy in place, there are some that may make exceptions for cash payments under certain circumstances. For example, some hotels may allow cash payments if the guest provides a valid ID and a cash deposit to cover any incidental charges. However, these exceptions are rare and are usually at the discretion of the hotel management. At the end of the day, if the man had done his due diligence and confirmed the payment policy ahead, he could have avoided the whole situation altogether.