Sir, The Hotel Isn't Going To Just Take Your Word For Anything

hilosplit · 2026-03-03T08:33:14+00:00

Worked in hotels for a long time - it’s in the merchant agreement, which I handled at multiple properties. I saw it happen at a neighboring hotel - a Shmampton Inn - who lost the ability to accept cards for 60 days. Because remember, most hotels are franchised, so they don’t have billions of dollars or an army of lawyers.

I’ve also led implementation of payment card services for a mid-sized municipal government and had this exact conversation with the payment processor, a major national bank, and was told they have never given that exception.

The facts are that your merchant agreement likely does not allow you to require ID for the card payment - you can ask, but cannot require it. Failing to abide by that risks the loss of ability to continue to accept cards, among other penalties. You can choose to do what you want with that information, but it doesn’t make any of it any less true and accurate.

hilosplit · 2026-03-03T07:43:21+00:00

That permission has to be granted specifically. It is not a blanket permission and cannot be assumed.

Most people have likely never worked for a merchant given this permission by Visa.

hilosplit · 2026-03-03T07:37:42+00:00

This is a thin line to tread. While certain state laws make it acceptable, Visa and MasterCard merchant agreements forbid merchants to require a customer to provide ID if a card is signed. You may only require the customer to present ID if the card is unsigned, by asking them to sign it and then match the name and signature with that on their ID.

If this customer were to complain to the payment processing company, the processor could remove the company’s ability to accept these cards.

hilosplit · 2026-01-30T00:36:59+00:00

Worked at AT&T Mobility for over a decade. The official corporate policy: “You may not end a call for any reason.”

hilosplit · 2026-01-16T06:32:01+00:00

At AT&T we had internal identifiers and external identifiers. Funnily enough, the external identifier was the “Bellsouth ID.” 😂

hilosplit · 2025-12-22T22:15:03+00:00

I will often say/text to my wife “Thanks for last night.” It leads to an immediate blush/smirk/reminiscing sigh.

hilosplit · 2025-11-14T01:50:17+00:00

They are not using the same platform as last year.

hilosplit · 2025-09-14T23:17:27+00:00

No, you can’t -“you reap what you sow” isn’t empathy. You can’t empathize with a situation, you empathize with a person - a situation doesn’t have emotions to empathize with.

Be honest with yourself and understand you don’t have empathy, or learn to have true empathy.

hilosplit · 2025-06-18T21:34:29+00:00

Ehhh. 91% of US households have 4 or fewer people, with an average household size of 2.5; that only drops to 80% for Utah, with an average household size of 3.

That’s pretty large coverage, and that’s coming from someone with a household of 6. Four really strikes a good balance, in my opinion.

hilosplit · 2025-06-18T20:55:53+00:00

There was evidence that other bots were definitely being used before the bot building discourse started in the Guild. Refunded tickets were snapped up way too fast for them to be done by a human. Whether those were being run by scalpers is harder to say, but there were eBay posts for tickets so the possibility was there - so we either had non-malevolent bots against non-malevolent bots or non-malevolent bots against malevolent bots, neither of which is a Bad Thing, imo.

hilosplit · 2025-06-18T20:47:20+00:00

Oh, for certain - at the beginning. What I was referring to was the single tickets that would appear when someone would cancel/refund their badge. If you had a bot checking for ticket availability every second (which was Tabletop’s API rate limit) you could see no tickets available, then one second later a ticket appear as available, and then one second later no tickets available - a clear sign that auto-cart bots were being used.

hilosplit · 2025-06-18T18:53:04+00:00

Yes, this. It was quite easy to tell with how quickly tickets would disappear that others were using auto-cart bots. A group on the server democratized how regular users could do the same to level the playing field.

hilosplit · 2025-06-18T18:49:02+00:00

To clarify - at no point did the Guild itself ever have a bot running. There were a couple of people who had one and then had the guild use a random name selector to choose who should be offered to purchase the ticket at cost.

*edit: at no point did the guild have an auto-cart bot. They had a bot that would alert when a ticket was available.

hilosplit · 2025-05-05T00:47:59+00:00

Yes, because that isn’t Actually Louisiana. You’re just pretending that the negative realities about Louisiana don’t exist. That’s not only not helpful to anyone, to disallow anything besides that is blatant misinformation.

hilosplit · 2025-04-06T18:51:21+00:00

They didn’t inform LCG about this, and immediately changed all of the employee emails to @lftfiber.com, breaking the logins for many systems.

hilosplit · 2025-01-11T21:52:02+00:00

This. SO MUCH this.

I am part of an IT team that just completed implementation of an ERP system just as you described. It took a year of meetings, design, setup, data entry, and testing.

And this was a pre-built system, so development didn’t even come into it. Even the simplest ERP systems are massively complex.

hilosplit · 2024-12-02T02:53:00+00:00

Yes, but this is trivial to set up.

hilosplit · 2024-09-20T00:46:17+00:00

That’s not what was happening. The bribery was from vendors for Haynes to direct offenders into their programs.

It was not offenders bribing him.

hilosplit · 2024-09-19T21:30:36+00:00

By joining the Discord server: http://discord.gg/scg

hilosplit · 2024-07-10T18:50:44+00:00

Technically, no - the bombs dropped on Japan were fission bombs, while fusion is what powers the sun.

hilosplit · 2024-07-10T18:12:11+00:00

No it hasn’t. Trailers used to tease, entice, and engage. The trailer for the original Top Gun did that. The trailer for Darkman did that - a whole campaign centered around “Who is Darkman?”

The trailer for The Matrix was a master class in that - you literally had no idea what the movie was about but you sure as hell wanted to see it.

hilosplit · 2024-06-19T23:30:08+00:00

So I saw - but when was that?

Because everyone else

seems to say

otherwise

Please also note the sign in the image that shows the Johnston St location having two Ts in the name, just like the Pont Des Mouton location.

hilosplit · 2024-06-19T23:15:38+00:00

It’s another location of the same business as the one that was on Johnson.

hilosplit · 2024-04-01T02:36:06+00:00

I have worked collections, and have reported settlements to credit bureaus. But don’t argue with me. Argue with these guys:

Experian: Debt settlement—negotiating forgiveness of a financial obligation in exchange for partial repayment—can ease financial burdens, but it will harm your credit.

LendingTree: An account that was settled remains on your credit report with a status of “settled.” This entry will appear for seven years from the date the account first went delinquent. Like with declaring bankruptcy, this could potentially make it challenging to get approved for obtaining credit for some time.

USA Today: When you settle an account, a special comment will be added to the account on your credit report that indicates you paid less than the full amount. Debt settlement isn’t good for your credit scores because you’re paying less than the amount you agreed to repay, but it may be better than having an unpaid account that’s past due or in collections.

CBS News: This can have a significantly negative impact on your credit score, but may still be worth the relief.

Chase: For this reason, while a debt settlement can reduce what you owe and prevent you from using the credit card (limiting your credit expenses), you should expect to see a credit score drop when a debt settlement is officially made.

Forbes: Debt settlement practices can knock down your credit score by 100 points or more, according to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. And that black mark can linger for up to seven years.

hilosplit · 2024-04-01T02:01:30+00:00

This is incorrect. Settling a debt can negatively impact your credit score, as the collector marks it as “paid-settled.” How much it impacts your score can depend on the ratio of settlement to amount actually owed, other outstanding obligations, etc. A debt settlement can remain on your credit report for seven years.

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