dr_torch

First of all - welcome to FT. Good to meet you.

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. It's certainly not a good one and, hopefully, the hotel staff can learn from it.

I've stayed in hotels where somebody else tried to get in but I had the deadbolt on. Similar experience - front desk issued the wrong room key, but for me they couldn't get in.

Certainly not blaming you - but a good lesson for next time. Live is a learning experience right?

For compensation though, you will never get what you want. If you really believe the hotel was negligent and you think you can prove it, then the only option is the legal route.

My advice (you don't need to take it) - if you ever feel your personal safety is threatened in a hotel (or, really anywhere) - first make yourself safe and then report it to the police. You can let the front desk (or whatever building you are in) know after that.

In this way somebody with some authority would have come to talk with you and then would have gone to find the other person.

It's just my 2c.

My other 2c - try not to dwell on this experience. It's not healthy from a mental health perspective. But I know it's easier said than done.

I guess that was 4c.

anonymousquestioner

What a stupid comparison. Have you ever heard of something called consent?

m0hamed

What a horrible experience. Humans all react differently, some may instantly fight and others may be in shock and freeze. The fact that the op went to the bar to cool down doesn't make the experience any less. There is a lot of victim blaming and shaming on this thread.

Sadly, narrating such videos for social media has become commonplace.

A quick Google search suggests that while Colorado is one party consent state for recording: Under Colorado CRS 18-7-801, taking pictures of a person’s intimate body parts without his or her consent is considered criminal invasion of privacy and can be prosecuted as a class 2 misdemeanor. In fact, they can be convicted as a registered sex offender.

I would lawyer up. The fact that you have his name means the police can conduct a criminal investigation. No doubt the property would be required to give his details. Most hotels also have CCTV in the hallways so you may even have additional evidence to corroborate your story.

Moyerclan

oh yeah... I forgot that the tears were a nice touch. It's just that I can't imagine still being so emotional about an accidental siting of boy parts by another boy.

anonymousquestioner

All good advice, and I agree. I don't expect that Marriott will do anything substantive to make reparations at this point, and I'm not litigiously inclined (although a couple of Denver law firms were eager to proceed when I was exploring options— I'm not sure that I'm comfortable going that route, but I'm still considering it). So that's probably that.

If Marriott came to me with a credible gesture of goodwill to recognise how messed up the situation is, I would probably still jump at the opportunity for closure. And my stories about my "Denver Pornographer" would have a positive punchline, like "yeah it was weird and the footage is out there somewhere, but Marriott did this nice thing to counterbalance the creepy dude— what a messed up thing that guy did!". Right now, though, a "free night" just feels actively insulting— this wasn't a case of "my bed linens were unwashed" or "my hot water was bad". So getting an email out of the blue today from Marriott corporate rescinding the [previously declined] "free night" offer and reminding me that they consider this matter closed really upset me, leading to this post. If Marriott doesn't take this seriously and offer some positive steps, the punchline I'm stuck with is of a corporate behemoth not caring about guest safety and minimising issues of (sexual) consent.

anonymousquestioner

Well then... you need to either develop a better sense of empathy and imagination, or live a little. Right now you sound to me like an emotionally stunted bully-child from an 80s movie.

anonymousquestioner

Thank you for trying to understand.

Unfortunately, Denver PD are declining to investigate/assist with securing the footage on the basis that Marriott provided the intruder with consent to access my private space when they issued him a key and directed him to enter my room. This apparently makes it much harder to establish any criminality. There's not much need for CCTV footage— the basic facts here are not in dispute, other than what has happened with the footage to-date. Denver PD told me I should "make a new report if footage surfaces on PornHub". I do feel that a big part of this reaction was because I'm a guy (and I'm not famous), which makes sense to me in some limited respects but also strikes me as deeply wrong in most other ways. In any case, this path seems mostly closed.

DFWsakp

A 20 second clip of a man’S private parts filMed is not going to appear on Pornhub. You probably have not visited Pornhub and seen it’s contents.
Any rational person would have done something when a stranger entered their room. I am still baffled when you say that you stood there for 20-30 seconds

jmastron

Entering a hotel room for the first time is not at all like entering your house or even a room that you were already occupying and had your belongings in it -- you have no real affinity to the room yet. The only proper response to any sign that someone else is in a room that should be completely clean and empty is to immediately leave (with an "OH! Sorry" if you even have time to get words out), march back down to the front of the line with a "What the heck??? That room you sent me to had someone in it" and get your new room assignment. Turning around and leaving is far faster than getting your phone (even if you had it out) and starting to video. Lingering and confronting the person who obviously belongs in the room is at best being a clod, and at worst being an intentional criminal voyeur (especially if working with the employee, which I'm not saying happened here at all)

And, frankly, a hotel's response to negligently giving someone a key to an occupied room should be to immediately and profusely apologize to *both* parties (if I were the manager I would want to be notified so I could apologize again, and offer some gesture). Not to shrug it off, not to laugh -- the employees screwed up, plain and simple. Yes, it happens, but no, it shouldn't if people are doing their job and the right checks and balances are in place.

In this case, unfortunately listening to the incompetent employees was a mistake -- a police report and even a visit to the clod might have scared him into doing the right thing and deleting, knowing his name was now on record. Or it might have turned up similar incidents in the area that raised suspicion. Or not, but there wasn't a downside (for OP, for the hotel yes it could be an embarrassing spotlight on them)

Eujeanie

I'm not a lawyer, but I think that Marriott should bear some responsibility for BOTH deadbolts being broken on your door. Even if they gave the intruder "permission" to enter by thinking the room was unoccupied and assigning him a key to it, if even one of the deadbolts had been working...none of this would have happened. There is always the physical latch up top, but I haven't been in a hotel room recently that didn't also have the "pull the handle straight up to lock the door", or else the simple additional lock you just turn. If I check into a room with a broken door....I don't. Back to the desk for a new room, or wait until maintenance comes to fix the one I have.

ISTFlyer

At a Westin at Virginia in February, I had a similar issue but at least I had the deadbolt locked thus the customer who was trying to check-in at my room couldn't enter despite his key card worked. He knocked the door at 11pm while I was already sleeping, which was followed by a call from the reception 10 minutes later to verify my last name on the phone.

At check-out, I only got a sorry sir, when I was dropping the keys at the key box and one employee asking how was my stay as well as I indicated this at the automated e-mail survey that they have sent to me ( or which was available at the Bonvoy app - not 100% sure ) and of course no response or no apology rather than two verbal "sorry" - once when reception calling me on the spot to verify my last name, once at check-out when leaving the hotel.

I am sorry for the OP but customer service at US companies have shifted to the way where companies ignore and hand vouchers as a mean to make the customer "shut their mouth" rather than solving the problem. Based on mine, the OP's and several other incidents that I have read at FT and elsewhere, Marriott is going at this way rather than caring about customer satisfaction.

1P

Before this thread gets locked, one might ask why OP didn't do some athletic posing and make a bit of money out of the perpetrator.....

Unimatrix One

Wait, what??!? Is this post for real? You unintentionally walk in on a naked person, and instead of leaving, your first reaction is to film them??? Who does that?? (Apparently you, unless you were being facetious.)

SMDH...

Allan38103

We’re finally getting to to bottom of this. It’s all about compensation.

OP was put into an uncomfortable situation through no fault of his own and it looks like there is some money to made from it.

moondog

I could swear we beat this horse to death several months ago.