One woman is calling out Comfort Inn & Suites after she says she was scammed out of her cash deposit by the hotel’s worker.
In a TikTok video that has amassed over 383,000 views, Denise Crane (@lovingmyhair18) captured the moment the worker refused to give her back a cash deposit for reasons she says were completely fabricated.
@lovingmyhair18 I was just scanmed at this hotel! When i checked in they wouldnt take either of my credit cards and said i had to use cash. I was here visiting my son, since he wanted to treat his Dad for Father’s Day, but anyways, had to pay cash deposit of $200 that was supposed to he given back at checkout. Come down this mornin to checkout, the young girl tells me to wait while she goes and check the room( when the older lady had already informed me that I would have to stick around about an hr after checkout for the housekeeper to say the room was fine) but she goes up herself and comes back to tell me she cant give me but $50 of my $200 deposit because there was makeup on the towels and an ink stain on the sheet(which she put there, because i didnt even put on makeup) Then tells me to sign saying I understand. I sign but includes how horrible of an experience I’ve had, she sees what i write and starts to mske another ticket and tells me i can’t do anything but sign. I said no‼️ and told them to keep the $50 as well‼️see included clip when they look stupid and threaten to call the Cops on me because of my camera. This is not over by any means‼️ #fyp ♬ original sound – loving my hair Beauty Supply
According to Crane, when she checked into her room, the hotel’s workers refused to accept her credit cards and told her she could only use cash to pay for the room.
“At first I thought it was a red flag,” she told the Daily Dot by phone. “But I run a business so I thought well maybe the card machine was down.”
Crane had already visited two other hotels, which were all completely booked, so she decided to fork over the cash for the stay. She also put down a $200 cash deposit that the hotel claimed would be returned to her at the end of her stay, if there were no damages to the room. But she noted the check in procedure was very strange.
“In the back of my mind I kept saying ‘something [isn’t] right back here.”
The following day, Crane spoke with another worker who assured her everything would be fine and her deposit would be returned. However, at checkout, the hotel guest says the workers came up with bogus reasons to keep her deposit and even attempted to forge her signature on a document.
“She goes up [to the room] herself and comes back to tell me she cant give me but $50 of my $200 deposit because there was makeup on the towels and an ink stain on the sheet (which she put there, because I didn’t even put on makeup),” Crane said in the video’s caption. “Then tells me to sign saying I understand.”
Crane asked to accompany the hotel workers to the room to see the stains for herself, but they refused to allow her to do so.
“No, I have the pictures here in my phone,” the hotel’s worker allegedly told her and showed her photos of the “damages.”
The hotel guest said the photos she was shown weren’t even of her room.
“That’s not my room, that’s not the room I came out of,” she argued.
Crane said that she ended up signing the document acknowledging why her deposit wasn’t returned, but also included a message about how terribly she had been treated by the hotel’s staff. When the worker saw the written complaint, she demanded Crane sign a new document, but the guest refused.
“I said no,” she wrote in the video’s caption, “and told them to keep the $50 as well.”
That’s when the hotel workers threatened to call the police.
In the comments section, many claimed to have had a similar experience at that hotel.
“Same thing happened to me in Lancaster at the comfort inn,” one user said.
“They do it all the time,” another person wrote.
Others wondered if keeping cash deposits because of makeup stains was actually even company policy.
“Never heard of hotel having deposits and cleaning fees,” someone said.
“I work for a hotel no cash deposit are allowed it’s all debit/credit for that reason there is no cleaning fee they pocketing money,” another user added.
“Man what hotel is this that charged people for makeup on towels,” a third commented.
The Daily Dot reached out to Comfort Inn and Suites for comment and for more information about its policy on deposits.
