Some customers seem to think the right question will unlock information they were already told they can’t have.

That’s what this property management employee was dealing with when a former tenant called looking for details about the person currently living in a condominium unit.

The employee gave a simple answer and pointed the caller in the right direction.

However, the caller didn’t seem interested in accepting that answer.

Instead, he started asking different versions of the same question in hopes of getting around the rules. And this isn’t the first time it’s happened.

Read on to see what this person has to say.

Fishing for Information — When Customers Can’t Take “No” for an Answer

I work in property management, and so I work the front desk for the office on-site at a gated community. All the units are condominiums, meaning they’re individually owned by homeowners and not directly managed by the Association.

There’s some gray areas, but that’s mostly just in regard to insurance and compliance, especially for remodeling (it’s gotta meet city code, for instance).

We otherwise do not have any jurisdiction or ability to hand out information, aside from the obvious emergency or legal avenues.

The whole thing reminded him of working at a hotel front desk.

Today, I got a call from a former tenant (let’s say from Unit 25) who was asking about when the assumed current resident moved in. I informed him that I do not have that information and that the homeowner would be the best way to get that information, if anything.

He then starts trying to ask leading questions, like, “Okay, well do you know when the tenant for Unit 25 came by for a key fob?” and other ******** questions to try and skirt around my hard no with a redirect.

I just shut him down immediately, and I let him know that I’m not the one to be asking these questions, to reach out to the homeowner, and then he finally gave up.

It reminded me of when I worked hotel front desk, and I’d get people way more often who would call in asking me to break confidentiality with a, “Is Bob Bobbington staying here?” kind of question.

Of course, he had a generic spiel ready.

I’d have to say the usual professional confidentiality spiel, including a hard no to try to get the point across.

They’d then try and skirt around it by saying things like, “Oh, well is anyone staying in Room 25? Could you tell me who’s staying in Room 25? 26? 24? 52? I’m sorry, my memory isn’t great. It’s important that I reach them, though. Could you connect me to them? I promise I won’t say anything.”

Like my no was actually an invitation to try to roll persuasion checks and fish for a Nat 20. If they were at the front desk, I would occasionally get the attempted peek over the counter at the information I had on my screen.

Does anyone else get these kinds of confidential-info-busting questions/calls way too often, even outside of the hotel industry? Does it also drive you at least a little nuts when people just can’t take no for a first, second, or even twelfth answer?

Wow! Situations like that get old really fast.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman whose HR department advised her to quit if she was that unhappy, so she did and found herself in a role reversal years later.

Let’s check out what the folks over at Reddit think about people doing this.

For this person, it was phone numbers.

Here’s someone who can relate.

This reader can relate with the caller.

This person will play along as much as you want.

Humans are incredibly creative when they want something.

If one approach doesn’t work, they’ll often come up with another one and then another one after that.

Clearly, that’s what happened here. The caller heard “no” and immediately started looking for a different path to the same information.

Fortunately, this employee recognized what was happening and shut it down. After all, confidentiality policies don’t mean much if people can get around them by simply asking the same question in a different way.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who works fast and helps her coworkers, but is met with disapproval from her supervisor because of this practice