Originally Posted by MDtR-Chicago

To lighten the mood with personal stories...

I once worked in a hotel that was obsessive about checking ID. I had heard two reasons. Apparently there had been a ton of fraud where people would book using a stolen credit card, in the card holder's name, check in by showing the credit card, then check out before the cardholder realized it was stolen.

There was also some discussion about how there had been some prostitution operating out of the hotel years before, to the point that police became involved, and when the management went to strict ID checks, the perpetrators moved on.

The only incident I remember was one night when a guy was checking in who absolutely refused to show ID of any kind and would not give a reason. When we refused to check him in, he got irate, to the point that I called security to make sure it did not get out of hand.

The security chief was working that night. Completely unflappable guy. Just stared him down. We require identification, if you refuse to provide it, we would be happy to cancel your reservation.

The stare down took a few minutes, whereupon the guest produced some sort of social club membership card with his picture, and we decided that was good enough.

But in all my years at the front desk, I had never seen someone become so agitated, so hysterical, but also be completely unwilling to tell us why.

Years later, it still sticks out in my mind. Wish I knew the backstory.