milepig

Can someone explain how a hotel can assign two guests to the same room? I'd have assumed that the room would need to have a status like "available to assign" and then once the first guest checked in it would change to "occupied" and they wouldn't be able to check in the second guest? DId the front desk mess up and aren't there systems in place to prevent that from happening? DId the 2nd guest to something crazy like say the were in room xxx and needed a 2nd key? Isn't the hotel supposed to check ID or something. Or did, just maybe guest 1 check out and continue to occupy the room? But in that case it would have needed to be cleaned. I'm confused.

onlyairfare

A belated welcome to FlyerTalk OP!

I am so sorry this happened to you. On the rare occasions I've been given a key to a room that was already occupied, I immediately backed out and returned to the front desk to report the situation. Certainly I would not stand in the door or worse yet, enter the room filming the incident, much less continue the filming of someone in the room once I realized an error had been made. And as a woman traveling alone and occupying a hotel room, I would be quite alarmed and frightened if a strange man walked in filming me. I'd probably scream and grab a desk chair if one was near me, shouting at the man to get out but the truth is I don't really know how I would react. Under those circumstances, who knows?

The mocking behavior of the front desk staff is inexcusable, as is the fact that the security lock or deadbolt on the door lock was non-functional. Multiple non-functioning locks on multiple room doors is worse and suggests poor overall management of that hotel if the carelessly incorrect key/room assignment and poorly trained staff did not already do so.

If a corporate travel department that I was required to use for work-related travel had booked the room for me, I probably would report it to them, but might limit the report to the careless assignment error and the unprofessional response of the front desk who seemed to be blaming the customer instead of the employee. That could avoid sexist responses by management if that were a concern - which could depend on your position in your company. Now is not the time to pass judgement on leaving the premises, drinking, management of nudity, etc. Most corporate travel companies will tout their ability to inspect properties for cleanliness and security as well as to obtain lower prices.

In the US, filing a police report is probably appropriate, contacting an attorney might be a good idea but I don't know. For sure, I promptly write down my account of everything that happened in detail, signed and dated - a "contemporaneous account" may prove valuable later when you have forgotten details.

LarryJ

The problem here is that the film-er has every reason to think that the person that they are filming is in THEIR room. Someone else doesn't have the expectation of privacy in MY room.

I don't know the details of how it happens, but it happens with some regularity. That's why I always have my DnD sign on the door for my entire stay and my deadbolt and chain locked whenever I'm in my room.

Bradhattan

You are totally ignoring the video portion of the story. It is one thing to walk in and realize the room is occupied (close your jaw and turn around) apologize and duck out 2 seconds later. Totally another once filming begins. Unlikely an accident with a Creeper, more likely Creeper has a friend at the front desk. My 2 cents (also equal to 2 euro cents - damn!)

MSPeconomist

When it happened to me, the front desk changed my preassigned room at check in to give me a better room with a view. I suspect the front desk agent forget to correctly/completely change the room assignment in the computer. When the guy who had been preassigned the room I was given, the front desk gave him a keycard to the room I was given. I had secured the deadbolt and was taking a bath when I heard rattling of the door. I loudly asked who was there and he was clearly shocked. He went back down to the front desk, who called me to ask who was in the room. I kept the room and the hotel sent a bottle of ice wine and a place of chocolate-dipped strawberries with a very gracious handwritten note of apology on a silver tray. Due to the nature of the hotel, its location, and the guy's polite voice, I didn't feel seriously threatened.

BTW, at least in the most commonly used keycard technology in the USA, whenever the hotel makes a new keycard for a room---either to assign it mistakenly to someone else, to make an additional key card after check in, or because a key card was lost---all older key cards for the room become deactivated as soon as the new keycard is inserted to attempt to enter the room. This is why the initial occupant of the room must get new key cards from the front desk. The system prevents two parties from ever both having valid key cards for the room.

hotscot

Respectfully...maybe I missed it. How do we know she was being filmed?

Super Mario

I'm sorry, but this has a lot of the markings of an odd story. I am sorry if this really happened. I just don't know that creating an account on some travel site is some great first step. It appears that TripAdvisor wasn't helpful. I wouldn't post anymore of these.

The video recording stuff isn't as cut and dry as many of you make it out to be. Good luck trying to get even the police access to another person's phone. Because if the shoe was on the other foot, you wouldn't want anyone to access your phones without some warrant. Especially on the reasoning that they were filmed. The other person could very easily come back and say something like "it was my room and here is xyz reason I was concerned". Put the shoe on the other person's foot again. If they walked into their room, found some strange activity, and no one believed them, every one of you would be yelling "you should have recorded it!"

lovetotravel

Did you read the original first post?

emrdoc

Really sucks for the poster.

Reminder to always use the latch...would have prevented this situation. Blows my mind that people don't do this simple action and even more so when showering!!!

YVR Cockroach

Maybe the OP come from some place where no one even locks the door. Some (or maybe quite a few) people where I live don't, and certainly doesn't seem to be the thing to do in my recent trip east. I, OTH, come from an rea (long time ago) here doors are not only triple or quadruple locked but a sliding/accordion lockable metal gate is used in addition to window bars. I heard from a former neighbour that the person he bought his former house from (who was from my home region) had window bars installed in all the ground level/accessible windows.

DenverBrian

This. Both a night latch and a deadbolt are standard on virtually all hotels at this level. Use them.

GUWonder

At check-in, I have been wrongly given room keys to rooms that were occupied. Only one of those times was there a naked person freshly out of the shower at the exact time I had just gotten into the room. I was of course apologetic and pulled back the door to get myself back into the hallway — it wasn’t really a hallway but more like a big foyer for the floor — and the naked person made no major fuss about it to my knowledge. [Maybe it helped that I sounded like an American business traveler/tourist in a foreign land.] After going to reception and mentioning the mix-up, I got checked into a room on the same floor. As I was going to my newly assigned room, I ran into the naked person but this time the person was fully dressed. I asked if they had complained and they didn’t think it was a big deal. The person seemed rather flirtatious for having just been walked in while totally undressed in a room where there was an obvious expectation of privacy. It was a Marriott group hotel in an expensive city at the time. If this happened to me, I would have wanted the room comped. I since use the deadbolt/latch in addition to the door’s automatic lock; and I have an on-the-floor door stopper I use anyway, at least for when I’m going into the bathroom or to bed.

GUWonder

My last few hotel check-ins have been done such that I could go straight to the room on arrival and use the phone app to generate a mobile key for use to unlock the door without even stopping by the front desks. In each such instance, the phone would be in my hand to unlock the door and remain in hand while opening the door.

In some parts, ending up sent to a room with a naked person in the hotel room may be taken as a sign that someone at the hotel may be providing cover for prostitution on premises and taking a commission or cut of the proceeds. In such cases, it would be solo male travelers that get “directed” to rooms in such ways. Recording may be a way for such travelers to avoid being accused of illegal or otherwise unsavory activity/attempted activity.

Access to the phone by the police or OP isn’t needed. That the person with the recording of the undressed person is informed that they could be civilly liable or criminally prosecuted if not securely deleting the copy so as to make sure there is no distribution of the naked images may be sufficient to get the person to do the right thing or realize that they can get into hot water for not having done the right thing. The hotel should put the other hotel guest on notice so that the guest does the right thing if they haven’t already. As it is, the hotel could potentially find itself in hot water from both guests provided keys to the same room at overlapping times.

onlyairfare

The OP noted that she was given two rooms in sequence, each of which had a malfunctioning deadbolt, although apparently when maintenance was summoned, the second room deadbolt was able to be made operable. It's certainly a good idea to always use the deadbolt and chain lock, but not every traveler is consistent and knowledgeable every time, especially if this is the first time it's happened to her.

When I have used my cellphone to unlock my room, I do not continue to hold up the phone and narrate my entry and assessment of the room, especially if someone is in there already. The occupant could be armed and dangerous to me if they are prepared to face an intruder with malintent.

To the OP, the individual entering the room was unwanted and unexpected, while the person entering, at best was a surprised guest who did not expect someone in "their room."

As pointed out, this could be nefarious activity on the part of someone at the front desk, At this point no one knows, so I'd likely opt to file a police report. If it was misunderstanding all around - a surprised first-time-this-ever-happened-to-me traveler and an annoying vlogger, no harm done. But if it was the tip of the iceberg for some criminal activity, at least the OP can establish she was not a part of that, and police can do their thing - subpoena phones or whatever investigation is indicated.

hotscot

I did. But there's nothing that verifies his camera was filming.