Prankster convinces hotel employee to set off sprinklers, smash windows, sprinkler heads, etc.. only in Alabama?

[tryfuhl]

NOPE! Arkansas too. Read the story, this has happened to two locations now.

JUNE 9--A telephone prankster posing as a sprinkler company employee caused havoc Saturday morning at an Arkansas Holiday Inn when he convinced an employee to set off the hotel's fire alarm, smash windows, shut down electricity, and break a sprinkler head that flooded the building lobby.

The bizarre incident is detailed in a report prepared by the Conway Police Department, which, as seen below, photographed the aftermath of the June 6 incident. According to police, Holiday Inn employee Christina Bergmann was at the front desk early Saturday when a male caller "identified himself as an employee of Grennel Fire Sprinkler service." The man told Bergmann that there was a problem with the hotel's fire sprinklers and that she "needed to pull the fire alarm to reset them," cops reported.

"Bergmann proceeded to pull the fire alarm at this point, causing the audible alarm." Bergmann, aided by a hotel guest, would subsequently follow a series of directions from the caller that would result in about $50,000 in damages to the hotel's windows, carpets and electrical system.

Hotel guests, who were evacuated during the incident, were allowed back into the Holiday Inn after police and fire officials determined that the caller was an imposter. Since a similar prank call was made to a Holiday Inn in Little Rock, Conway cops alerted fellow Arkansas law enforcement officials that "more of these calls could be coming in," according to the police report.

Rusty Brown, the Holiday Inn guest who helped Bergmann follow the prankster's instructions, told TSG he was "an innocent bystander and got involved in domestic terrorism." Bown, 36, remarked that there was "absolute panic in that hotel," adding that, "all I did was make it worse. I'm not proud of breaking windows. It is very disheartening."

SOURCE (also has police incident report)

[GMScud]

People are so dumb.

[saden1]

Amazing...it didn't occur to these imbeciles to call the fire department if they wanted wanted to insure that the sprinkler system was operational? I really don't get it the whole breaking windows thing either.

[mredskins]

I worked for Marriott for ten years in diffrent capicites but I have heard and seen many strange things like this in hotels.

Thing is when you are a front desk clerk you are hit with many odd request that are all liget. At some point this lady should have thought a little straighter but whatever.

We had one hotel have all it's lobby furniture stolen and the desk clerk help carry it out with the guys. The guys told the front desk they were coming to take the furniture because all the new furinture was coming the next day. A big scam that went on for a while in the Boston area was a group of folks posied as AT&T work men and would come in and steal the phone board from the hotel. Those boards are like $50k at the time.

Usually these dirt bags traget the grave yard shift the most because usually no management is on duty and grave yard guys are pretty clueless to what is going on during the day at hotels.

[Miller101]

Rusty Brown, the Holiday Inn guest who helped Bergmann follow the prankster's instructions, told TSG he was "an innocent bystander and got involved in domestic terrorism."

Domestic Terrorism??!?!?!?! More like domestic idiocracy!

[tryfuhl]

Originally Posted by mredskins

I worked for Marriott for ten years in diffrent capicites but I have heard and seen many strange things like this in hotels.

Thing is when you are a front desk clerk you are hit with many odd request that are all liget. At some point this lady should have thought a little straighter but whatever.

We had one hotel have all it's lobby furniture stolen and the desk clerk help carry it out with the guys. The guys told the front desk they were coming to take the furniture because all the new furinture was coming the next day. A big scam that went on for a while in the Boston area was a group of folks posied as AT&T work men and would come in and steal the phone board from the hotel. Those boards are like $50k at the time.

Usually these dirt bags traget the grave yard shift the most because usually no management is on duty and grave yard guys are pretty clueless to what is going on during the day at hotels.

Those thieves can be kinda clever huh? What I've always told employees was "if I didn't tell you it was going to happen, you tell the person to get with me first, I don't care if someone just starts washing the windows outside or says that they're there just to audit something, you contact ME before ANYONE does anything"

[Dirtbag59]

Originally Posted by Miller101

Domestic Terrorism??!?!?!?! More like domestic idiocracy!

Their Jihad.........it's gotten.......stronger. My God.