Guest contacts hotel demanding cancelled reservation, but their story keeps changing becoming increasingly unbelievable: 'I tell him no. That is against policy as per my manager'

In your first customer service gig, you will be shocked at how readily people manipulate and bend the truth in their favor while recounting events with what seems like complete and absolute sincerity.

The first time you encounter one of these sad sob stories, your first instinct will be to do everything in your power to help them out. But the first time one of these stories starts to not quite add up, unraveling before your very eyes, you're going to end up with trust issues and not take anything a customer says at face value ever again. It's a shame, really, that this becomes the case, as there are plenty of honest people out there seeking assistance. But these types of situations ruin it for everyone and make sticking fast to the written resolution process to be a necessity.

That's what this hotel front desk worker encountered when they were contacted by a frantic guest who let them know that they had mistakenly made a booking, seeking to cancel it so they could place a booking with a different hotel. New and relatively inexperienced in how to handle these situations themselves, they deferred to their micromanaging manager's instructions, declining to touch the reservation themselves. 

This prompted a series of calls to different customer service people in the company, with the guest's story twisting and turning every step of the way. See the front desk worker's account of events, which they shared with this popular customer service community, below.