Well here’s something you don’t see every day…
In this post:
Man makes 580 bogus hotel reservations, gets arrested
A 28-year-old clinical laboratory technician has been arrested by Tokyo Metropolitan Police, and is charged with the fraudulent obstruction of business.
According to the police, the man made a total of 580 bogus hotel room reservations at a particular hotel in Tokyo’s Ota Ward (it’s not clear exactly which hotel), worth more than $114,000. Of those, 258 reservations were for a single night back in December 2024, totaling more than $49,000.
The man had reportedly made the reservations using false names and different email addresses. The police began investigating the case after being contacted by the hotel, which reported that the reservations caused the business financial harm, and stating that the reservations were made with the intent to harass.
I wonder what his problem was with the hotel
Presumably the guy made 500+ fake reservations at a hotel because he wanted to harm the property’s bottom line. However, it’s not yet clear why exactly he did this, and what his connection was to the property — the accused reportedly remained silent during questioning.
I’m not sure if he used fake credit card numbers for the reservations, or if the hotel simply doesn’t require a credit card authorization, given that Japan is a pretty high trust society (I’ve stayed at several hotels in Japan that don’t require a credit card at booking).
What this man did is certainly one way to do financial harm to a hotel, since presumably the number of bookings he made impacted the hotel’s ability to accept reservations from others.
Did he have an issue with the property’s owners? Did he have an issue with someone who worked at the property? Did he just think this was a funny joke? It’s not clear, but given the extent to which he scaled this operation, it was bound to raise some red flags.
One certainly wonders to what extent he automated this process, or otherwise, how much time it took him to make 250+ reservations for a single night.
Bottom line
A man has been arrested in Japan after booking 580 stays at a particular hotel, including 258 stays for a single night. Clearly the guy wanted to do financial harm to the hotel, and this is definitely one way to accomplish that.
It’s not clear what his motive was, though one certainly wonders if we’ll see more hotels in Japan start to require a credit card at the time if booking, to prevent situations like this in the future…
In some strange way, I find this story entertaining, as an example of the little guy sticking to dysfunctional and broken systems - think of all the issues we have with computer systems designed by people who dont have to use or interact with him......
think to yourself - how many times do you wish you could fight back?
I wonder if a true jury of his peers would convict him?
(yes, I know this probably has nothing to do with being frustrated by an online process)
Some Japanese media outlets reported the victim hotel is directly connected to Haneda Airport - so it must be one of the following: Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyo (T2), The Royal Park Hotel Tokyo Haneda (T3) or Villa Fontaine Grand/Premier Haneda (T3, but 10 min+ walk).
My first thought while reading was Villa Fontaine in Haneda, the number of hotels in Ota-ku where it would be possible to make that number of bookings for one day is not high. Considering he'd probably not be able to book all rooms, as some would be booked to other sides as well.
And by the way, how do you spend 10 minutes walking to Villa Fontaine from T3, they are connected by an elevated walkway and are about 300m apart.
Could the absence of posts from Bad_Krap_Arps be explained by the fact that he has been busy booking hotel rooms in Tokyo?
That's something a clown employee with spelling problems would do.
Only a “Clown” like you Jon, who is the most perfect example of numpty would know such things. Well done …. :-)
Both of those identities have been banned.
Yet again BiggusDickus? One is confident that it will reinvent itself in another form.
These sorts of things often happen in various forms in Japan when someone is angry for whatever reason at [society], a business, person, etc. and are part of why in the last few years many places started writing formal customer harassment policies.
And yeah, hotels are very trusting. Normally it's the smaller city ones that don't require a credit card though (or for that matter, even ask for one at all), even at reasonably sized...
These sorts of things often happen in various forms in Japan when someone is angry for whatever reason at [society], a business, person, etc. and are part of why in the last few years many places started writing formal customer harassment policies.
And yeah, hotels are very trusting. Normally it's the smaller city ones that don't require a credit card though (or for that matter, even ask for one at all), even at reasonably sized chains like Associa. I'm surprised there was a hotel in Tokyo that didn't ask for a card though...
This reminds me of a story when a man purchased 300 train tickets in a ticket machine (that were all or almost all available ones I think; reportedly it took him about 8 hours) and went on the following day to the train station to return them at the ticket window. I think he wanted to highlight how pointless and time consuming the whole process of returning tickets was for the passengers.
One problem, and I don't know what legal/financial reason this is, is that a lot of hotels/restaurants in Japan let you book things without entering a credit card number. And you can go all the way up to check in time without paying.
I suppose it's some kind of thing related to their honor-based assumption you're going to show up, or rules about not pre-charging credit cards or whatever. But I think they need...
One problem, and I don't know what legal/financial reason this is, is that a lot of hotels/restaurants in Japan let you book things without entering a credit card number. And you can go all the way up to check in time without paying.
I suppose it's some kind of thing related to their honor-based assumption you're going to show up, or rules about not pre-charging credit cards or whatever. But I think they need to fix that.
A big problem is also that you can book things online without paying, but then 24 hours before, you are no longer allowed to cancel via the same method. Like you have to call them, and who is going to do that when you can't speak Japanese? I think this leads to a lot of no-shows.
A lot of Japanese folks didn't have credit cards back in the day. It's not as common as it used to be but Japanese companies, especially those that are Japanese-focused (and don't deal with foreigners as often) tend to be very slow to update their business practices lest they offend or block the small slice of customers who prefer to do things the old way.
And then we have the polar opposite form of capitalism here where a subscription model is mandatory and so easy to engage but virtually impossible to cancel once you're hooked by the corporate claws with their insatiable greed.
On my first trip to Japan long ago, when I canceled a hotel, they gave me their address and asked me to mail the cancellation fee in cash.
This is a problem with trains as well. There are empty cars because if you have a certain class of ticket you can make a reservation and not show with no penalty. Meanwhile for the tourist ticket you need to wait in line for hours to get a paper ticket that is only good on certain cars which end up being standing room only while the other cars are practically empty. The system is totally crazy to an outsider.
A state in Australia removed fees for campsites. Reservations increased dramatically; occupancy plunged. People have no problem making reservations they might use if there are no costs.
Is Gary Leff secretly posting his clickbait-y stories here now?
(Really wish you had less of these types of posts, Ben)
Frankie just skip it, you don't have to click on it and read it and then take the time to comment. You can just give it a miss, it's quite easy to do.
Fewer, not less.
I agree that I could just skip it but, at some level, I think Ben should hear this type of feedback.
I used to read Gary's blog. But as he started posting more of the cheap, tabloid level articles, I stopped reading him altogether.
Ben, please keep up with these type of posts. It's fun to highlight some of the random or quirky aspects of the travel industry. I know the core of your work focuses on the more traditional aspects of travel but these articles are also interesting to read!