Imagine working at a hotel and finding out that a hotel guest claims some of their money is missing, money they claim was inside the safe at the front desk.

What would you do? Would you check the security camera footage or tell the guest you’re not responsible for anything lost or stolen at the hotel?

In this story, one hotel employee is in this situation, and the drama starts on their day off. When they finally get to work the next day, they look into the situation and get a little clarity on what happened, but it’s still a mystery.

Keep reading for the whole story.

The Curious Case of the Missing Money

10 August 10AM

I’m at home after working 16 hours, with a four hour nap, and then worked another 8 hours. I’m exhausted. I don’t want to deal with work, but my FDA calls me anyway. He calls me from his cell phone, at home, well before his shift starts.

FDA: Good morning. Sorry to bother you, but do you know anything about the guest who left $850 in our back office safe?

ME: Absolutely not.

OP offered to deal with it.

FDA: Well, they left it in our safe, and then checked out and forgot about it. Now they want me to wire them the money. We’ve been communicating through email.

ME: I’m not understanding. Why do we have their money?

FDA: I don’t know, but they want it back.

ME: We’re not doing that. Leave it for me and I’ll deal with it when I’m in tomorrow.

It is odd.

FDA: Well, they fly back to England in a couple of days and they want their money. They’re now in Monterrey.

ME: I need to know more information before I send someone $850, so they’ll have to wait.

FDA: OK.

We hang up and I’m a little bit bewildered why a guest would leave $850 in our safe after checking out. I go back to bed and think it’s the end of it, but I was so wrong.

The situation got even more confusing.

10 August 7PM

I’m at my friend’s house drinking a really good bottle of cab sauv when I get another call from the Hotel. I answer and it’s the same FDA from this morning, who is now at work.

FDA: Hey, man. The guests drove back to the Hotel to pick up their money and there’s some missing. There’s only $550.

ME: I still don’t know what’s going on. Have them fill out an incident report and I can investigate tomorrow. Send me an email with what you know as well. Leave the incident report on my desk. If they want to call the police and report it, they can.

OP refused to talk to the guest.

FDA: They’re ticked off. They want to talk to you.

ME: I can’t do anything without a report.

FDA: OK. Copy.

We hung up and I wait for that email. It never comes, but that’s neither here nor there.

There was nothing OP could even do about the situation when she arrived at work.

11 August 7AM

I show up prepared to deal with this missing money thing on top of the usual check outs, phone calls, emails, etc. I really don’t have much to go on, since my FDA didn’t fill anything out. I have nothing on my desk from either him or the guest, so there’s nothing I can do. At this point, I don’t even know the guest’s name.

11 August 730AM

There was a misunderstanding and I thought I was covering the desk for another FDA, who I’ll call EK, but he happened to show up late.

OP finally found out what happened.

ME: Do you know anything about this $850?

EK: Yeah. The safe in their room wasn’t working, so they gave it to me. I didn’t know what it was, though, as everything was in a red plastic envelope thing. I gave them a claim check and they left.

ME: Well… that changes everything. They didn’t say what was in the envelope?

EK: No.

OP thought of one option and ruled it out immediately.

ME: So they just left you with $850 and no way to prove it?

EK: Yeah.

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So….. it’s now 930AM and I haven’t heard anything from these mysterious guests. My first thought was that one of my employees stole, but we have cameras everywhere, so that would be dumb.

Our claim checks have a disclaimer saying that if a guest accepts the claim check, they’re basically saying that the hotel isn’t liable for loss, theft, damage, etc.

This would be the logical thing to do.

My other thought that, if you’re handing someone an envelope of cash, and whatever else, wouldn’t you want a paper trail?

As a smart person, I would’ve taken the FDA aside (our bar is closed during the day), emptied the envelope, and had the agent acknowledge that the envelope had my money, passports, etc. I would’ve taken pictures because I’m also kinda crazy. I would’ve had them sign a form agreeing that everything on this form is in this envelope, just to cover my own butt and theirs.

I have no proof that the envelope contained $850. All I know is that when they picked it up, it had $550.

So, what would you do?

So, I think what OP’s saying is that the guest may have lied about what was in the envelope or may not have known how much money was in the envelope. Either way, it sounds like the hotel isn’t responsible even if the money was stolen.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person thinks it sounds like a scam.

Another person believes it’s a scam.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a manager who wonders why productivity dropped after he banned overtime with no exceptions.

Here’s a suggestion to threaten to call the police.

This does sound like a scam. I would check the security cameras and leave it at that.

It sounds like this hotel needs to establish a policy about leaving things in the safe for guests. They should have the guest sign something stating they’re not responsible for anything that’s lost or stolen. They should also have an employee and the guest sign something listing what they’re holding onto for the guest. Or, they should simply refuse to hold onto anything for hotel guests.