Mr. Patel strikes!

I'm fairly certain many that have worked in hotels have gotten the old "I'm Mr. Patel, the owner!" scam come though but this guy that tried was a different level than some of the others I've tried.

Got the call around midnight, and could hardly hear the guy due to background noise on his end. He sounded drunk and his accent wasn't helping either. Calls in and says "Hi. Hello! This is Mr. Patel " but I didn't catch the name right away.

"Hello. Can I help make a reservation?"

"No no, this is the owner of the hotel!"

"The owner? Of our hotel? What was your name again?"

"You don't know who I am? I'm the owner!"

Not my first rodeo with this scam, so the flag already started with him claiming to be the owner.

"Owner? What's your name?"

"Mr. Patel! I'm the owner. Really you work there and you don't know who I am?"

"Nope never met you, cause you aren't the owner of this hotel." I was now confident this was a scam cause fun fact, our owners are middle aged white men from the Midwest.

"I am the owner! Look I have a package being delivered to the hotel and the card isnt working. You need to put a different card down."

"No. Cause you aren't the owner. Good try though. Night!"

I hung up and thought this was the end of it but I was wrong. Phone rang again, and I answered with the typical greeting before getting.

"Hi, this is Mr. Patel the owner."

I wanted to thump my head so bad on the counter. They only waited 5 min before trying again. At least wait until a new shift or something.

"Thats not our owners name. You're not the owner."

"Well...what's the owners name then?"

Oh ho, are we getting smarter? That's the first clever question I've heard them ask before.

"I thought you were the owner? You don't know your own correct name? Shame." And I proceeded to hang up. I had other things to work on. And you'd think that'd be the end, but lo and behold it wasn't. This time they waited 10 whole minutes.

"Hello is the manager there?"

This was different, so continued on with good customer service. "I'm the Night manager on duty, how can I help?"

This guy sounded different than the last so I was more friendly to this point. "This Mr. Patel the owner and I have..."

I cut him off at this point. "No. No you're not." And he actually hung up before I could! Rude! But yeah, our owners actually live in the city our hotel is in, only a few miles away and don't directly speak to us, especially after 10 pm.