lydy | In Which I React Badly to High-Pressure Sales

So, I called Hilton to double-check on which days I had a reservation for at the Doubletree this weekend, as this weekend is Fourth Street. (Yay, Fourth Street!) The person on the other end of the line was a lovely woman who kept on calling me Miss Lydia. I asked her if she was in the South, she said she lived in North Carolina, and we had a pleasant, short chat. She asked me if I would be wiling to listen to a presentation for an additional 500 Hilton points, and because she had been so nice, and I know that they use these sorts of metrics to judge their customer help people, I said yes.

The next woman was...nice? I think? So, it starts in media res, with her assuming a bunch of things about what I am there for, and I am starting to worry a bit. I answer a lot of questions, allow as how I might like to go to Las Vegas, and decide that "single" rather than "cohabitation" is the useful category, since I don't usually travel with David. Then it starts going faster and faster. Because I don't want to investigate a Carribean cruise, they will refund the $200 that they are going to charge me for the 4 nights 3 days in Las Vegas that I am going to get to go to in the next year if I book in the next 45 days, but I will still have to pay taxes, but that's only twenty odd bucks and as a special something I didn't quite follow they are now going to give me 5000 Hilton points, which would take me some amazing amount of time or money to accumulate and it's going too fast and I am not following it. At some point, I give them my credit card number, since yes, I do want to go to Las Vegas, and am pretty sure Beth will go with me, because I really want to see O at some point, and it really does sound like a good deal. Then the person tells me that she needs to reconfirm everything, and starts saying things, and one of them is that I agree to go to a two hour presentation and that if I have a spouse or co-habitor they will have to attend with me, and I say, "No way in hell am I sitting through a two hour presentation."

So then, the nice? lady explains that she had already told me that, and I had already agreed. I think this was meant to be reassuring, with a bit of blackmail along the lines of "you already agreed to this." I start to panic, thinking if I missed that, what else did I miss in the initial conversation. Also, I think about sitting through a two hour presentation, and have flash backs to church. (Ok, I had a really weird childhood, so sue me.) I get more stressed. She starts going on about how somehow I'm going to be posting a picture of a place that i go on some sort of social media, not Instagram but some travel place or something, and how this is how they generate buzz and of course I do want to tell the world how wonderful they are, and I have lost the thread and can't tell how this connects to the two hour presentation that I apparently agreed to, and I tell her to stop, don't process the money on the card, just let me out of this. It's all moving too fast, and I'm starting to have a panic attack, and I do not agree to anything.

She then says something about her manager, who is apparently listening in, as per the disclaimer up front, has decided that she can also offer me an additional $200 for something and I am now really, really panicked, because every time I say no to something, it changes. I cannot keep track of anything. My stomach hurts and I feel like crying. She starts asking me questions, and I tell her that I can't, just can't, I really want her to stop, now. and she says that she just wants to ask me if this doesn't sound like a good value, and I'm saying you need to stop, and then she says that her manager has said that she can offer me an upgrade to a private apartment, and doesn't that sound nice, and I hear myself saying, "No, no, no, no, no, just stop, I said no. Do not charge, just stop." And she's still trying to sell me, and I said, "I really need you to agree that you heard me say no, and that you won't charge my credit card" and she says, that she did hear me say no, but she just wants to ask me and I interrupt, "I am going to hang up the phone now, you need to not charge my card, I do not consent to anything."

And hung up the phone.

Hilton is a reasonably respected brand. I assume that I just passed up on a really good deal. And, honestly, if she had slowed down, not constantly changed the terms, explained more slowly, been much more understanding when I told her I was having a panic attack, maybe she could have made the sale. It really seems unlikely that it was a scam. But it felt exactly, exactly like a scam.

So, guess I don't have this great hotel deal for Las Vegas after all.

Fuck Hilton. I consider it a major victory that I neither dissolved in hysterical tears nor yelled at anyone after I hung up. But it was a near thing.