writerguyfl

I think you may not have completely understood slidergirl's comment. This is the key that I think you might be missing:

If the Front Desk Representative you talked to wasn't fully qualified to fix your problem, she or he may not have known which screen to check. Or, she or he may not have fully understood what was on that screen because of lack of training.

I'm thinking Hanlon's Razor is the explanation: Never attribute to malice [a lie] that which is adequately explained by stupidity [lack of training].

I spent over a decade working in hotels. The Front Desk is the public-facing area of the hotel. As such, most guests expect them to be able to fix every problem. Even a seasoned Front Desk Representative can't fix some problems, simply because they don't have access to the proper tools.

In most hotels, there are pretty clear temporal lines regarding "ownership" of a problem. Anything issue prior to arrival is usually handled by the Reservations Department. Starting the date of arrival through the date of check out, the Front Desk takes over. After that, the Accounting Department is the area that typically handles all billing issues, as slidergirl notes.