Here’s Why a S’pore Man “Abusing” Hotel Staff in Bintan Went Viral on TikTok

Last Updated on 2023-06-05 , 11:38 am

With the June holidays in full swing, many probably can’t wait for a lovely relaxing holiday.

However, international travel being a thing again means the risk of encountering unpleasant hotel guests has also increased.

Videos showing a Singaporean man hurling verbal abuse at the staff of a Bintan hotel have gone viral.

He was upset because the hotel staff had allegedly knocked on his door at 3 am.

TikTok Videos of Man Scolding Staff Goes Viral

TikTok user @dan_wilk, who goes by Dan, uploaded not one, but two videos depicting the man’s relentless tirade.

The fact that the incident resulted in a two-parter feels like a serialised Chinese drama happening in real life.

The videos were uploaded on 31 May 2023 and have since gone viral.

While part one has 71.6k views, part two currently sits at a whopping 342.9k views.

The videos were filmed in the lobby of Doulos Phos The Ship Hotel in Bintan, where the man is seen confronting a staff member.

His elderly mother is seen standing beside him while a security guard observes the kerfuffle.

The caption of the videos explains, albeit sarcastically, that the Singaporean man was upset that the hotel had done their due diligence in expressing concern for his mother when she wandered off at night.

Part one begins with the man telling a staff member, “You don’t get into an argument with a hotel guest. Because you wake your hotel guests up at 3 am.”

@dan_wilk Singaporean abuse hotel staff in Bintan, due to his mother getting lost at night and the hotel providing duty of care. Doulos Phos The Ship Hotel #singaporean #indonesia #abuse #abusive #takeadvantage #mothership #mothershipsg #bintan #ship #hotel #makeascene #fypシ #fypviralシ #fyp #youtube #facebook #instagram #tittok #sg #sgtiktok #singapore #scene #complaint #yelling #yell ♬ original sound – wilkinson310 – Dan

As he talked, the man repeatedly pointed his index finger at the staff as if scolding a child.

The staff then clasped his hands and bowed slightly in apology.

However, the man was not deterred and continued, “You don’t manhandle your guests like that. You have no right to lay a finger on me. 

“You are not the police, and even if you were the police, I have not committed a crime, so you have no right to touch me. Why are you manhandling me? Why are you getting your security to manhandle me?”

As he spoke, he gestured angrily towards the security guard.

The person filming, Dan, explained that the man was causing trouble last night, prompting him and his mother to glare at him.

As the staff tried to apologise again, the man said, “What happened is that you disturbed my sleep at 3 am when I put a ‘Do not disturb’ sign, alright?

“And I already said the first time round, the first time you knocked on my door, and I said ‘please do not disturb. I got a child sleeping’, right? You’re disturbing the child; you’re waking up the child.

“But what do you do? You come back and keep hammering on the door until I open the door. Why? Was there a fire that everyone needed to evacuate from? Then what is the emergency you had to wake everyone up at 3 am? What is the emergency?”

Here, the staff tried to apologise again. However, the man cut him off. 

“You’re the one person who said ‘I’m sorry’! Even if you don’t mean it, at least you used the word ‘I’m sorry’, and everything will be valuable, right? 

“Because you wake people at 3 am for whatever reason, where electricity is cut at night, and no electricity when people shower.”

Apparently, there had been an electricity outage that night as well.

Part Two: Man and Cameraman Engage in Filming Stand-Off

The second video starts in the middle of the man’s tirade about a power failure.

@dan_wilk Singaporean abuse hotel staff in Bintan, due to his mother getting lost at night and the hotel providing duty of care. Doulos Phos The Ship Hotel #singaporean #indonesia #abuse #abusive #takeadvantage #mothership @wilkinson310 #mothershipsg #bintan #ship #hotel #makeascene #fypシ #fypviralシ #fyp #youtube #facebook #instagram #tittok #sg #sgtiktok #singapore #scene #complaint #yelling ♬ original sound – wilkinson310 – Dan

“Whether the power bridge is down and you got no backup power, you at least say ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience caused’. And then you explain the reason why. 

“You don’t just blame everybody else, but you don’t take responsibility for that. And then after that, you blame everybody else, but you never say a word of sorry.

“That is why I’m upset. I’m upset because the power went out – yes, things happen. I can understand that. Alright? But nobody offered an apology for the inconvenience caused.”

At this point, a female employee pulled the security guard away from the scene.

The man continued, “But if you come and wake me up at 3 am, not telling me you are sorry, telling me you found an old lady wandering around and asking if the old lady is my family, now how do you establish she’s my family?

“What if she’s not my family? Do you go and knock on their [other guest’s] door and ask, ‘Is that your family member?’ You can’t knock on everyone’s door and ask if this old lady is their family member. 

“And the old lady has returned to our room what, correct? So if she has returned to the room and is safe now, why must you wake everybody up? Why can’t you inform the family members in the morning?

“Why can’t you do that? Why did you keep hammering on my door when I told you to go away the first time? Why do you keep hammering on my door like I committed a crime? 

“Why can’t you just let me rest? You’re a hotel, you know? People come in to relax and rest. Not to be woken up at 3 am. 

“That is why I am upset. And when I explain to you, what do you do? Raise your voice at me. You made a mistake. If you can raise your voice, I can raise my voice as well. 

“I try to be reasonable with you guys. But when you behave unreasonably with me, I won’t be reasonable with you either. You understand that, right?

“I’m talking to you now; what do you do? You get your security guard to try and manhandle me off the hotel. Is that the way you treat hotel guests? Have I committed a crime? 

“I’m just expressing my unhappiness. That does not give you the right to manhandle me.”

Once again, the staff apologised.

In the background, Dan noted that the staff got cut off whenever he tried to talk. 

Continuing his rant, the man suddenly pointed his phone towards Dan. 

He threatened, “Do you want to get involved?”

Dan said, “You did get me involved last night when you were shouting in the hallway up there.”

The man then says he only shouted because ‘he was shouting back’ at him. 

The woman, Dan’s wife, retorts, “You have children. We also have children. You are being very selfish.”

This results in the man and his mother approaching the couple aggressively, with the elderly woman saying, “This is not your problem.”

The staff then advised the couple to leave, and they did. 

Before the video gets cut off, the man can be heard saying, “This is none of your business.”

Dan’s Response

On 1 June, Dan told AsiaOne that he had filmed the video in the hotel lobby when he was preparing to eat breakfast.

He uploaded the video onto social media “as evidence in case anything happened”.

He said, “I felt sorry for the staff who were being shouted at in such a way that was totally uncalled for.

“That hotel guest could have just addressed his issue in private and not cause a scene.”

Man Uploads Video Confronting Dan

The man has since uploaded a YouTube video of him confronting Dan and his wife for filming the incident.

The video is titled “Caucasian-Asian couple abuses Singaporean family when caught secretly filming at Bintan hotel”, which sounds bad out of context.

The video’s caption writes, “Caucasian man and Asian wife points the middle finger and uses vulgarities on Singaporean family when caught secretly filming exchange between a hotel guest and customer which had nothing to do with him.

“He then proceeds to upload the video to various social media platforms and include confidential information he had obtained from the Doulos Phos Bintan hotel. 

“A police report has been lodged.”

What Happened: Hotel’s Perspective

Dan also uploaded a video with the sequence of events from the hotel’s perspective.

Apparently, the man’s mother was walking along a corridor and knocked on the door of another guest’s cabin.

As the guest didn’t know who was knocking, they called hotel security.

When hotel staff came to check on the man’s mother, the elderly woman did not know where her cabin was.

Thankfully, they managed to find her cabin.

Her elderly husband had been asleep and didn’t know she had left. According to the staff, he was grateful for her safe return.

However, the hotel’s director was concerned that the man’s mother would leave the cabin again, so the hotel decided to check with the man.

The staff knew that the man was related to the couple as he had referred to the elderly husband as “dad”.

When staff knocked on the man’s cabin door, they were told to leave as the family was asleep.

Thus, the staff asked the man about his mother from outside the door, fearing she might wander off again.

The man got highly aggressive and shouted, allegedly refusing to confirm that he was related to the lady.

According to the hotel, he kept reiterating that the door had a “do not disturb” sign for a reason.

When staff tried to explain that they were concerned about the woman‘s safety as she had almost walked to the staircase, which could have led to her falling.

Instead of being concerned, the man refused to cooperate. He came out of his cabin to shout at the staff.

He allegedly asked them if they knew the meaning of “do not disturb” and “pointed his forefinger menacingly close”.

He reportedly used vulgarities and threatened to wake the rest of the guests up.

At this point, another guest opened their door and asked the man to stop shouting as they also had children who needed to sleep.

However, the man refused to comply and continued shouting.

The man’s father also came out and told him to stop shouting as everything had been settled.

The staff didn’t want to worsen a bad situation, so they left the scene.

In the message, the hotel explained, “Our concern was for the safety of the old lady, but he had continued to make unfounded accusations about us and demanded to check out immediately and demanded a refund.”

In the morning, the man’s father explained that his wife suffered from an illness where she did not know where she was and thought she was at home.

Though not explicitly mentioned, the hotel assumed he was referring to dementia.

The man’s father had asked his wife if she could remember the incident, but she could not remember anything.

The elderly couple said that the man had been in the army at one point, explaining his aggressive behaviour.

He had apparently developed an “anger issue” from his time in the army.

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Hotel was Just Concerned About the Elderly Woman’s Safety

The hotel stressed that they simply wanted to caution the man about the danger of his mother wandering off.

That morning in the hotel lobby, where the man hurled verbal abuse at the hotel staff, he allegedly said that “whether she is a relative of his or not is none of our [the hotel’s] business”.

The hotel explained that the man had taken out his phone to video the staff during the shouting match, making the matter worse.

They explained, “He asked us questions but refused to give us a chance to answer his questions with his non-stop bantering.”

While more details have yet to be revealed, the hotel hopes that giving a fuller account of the incident would not be necessary.

“He had made many accusations, but if no further allegations or slanderous statements are made, we would rather let the matter rest.

“We may, however, need to respond to whatever he may have posted on social media and the like.

“But if there is no closure and more allegations are perpetuated via social media, we reserve all our rights to seek necessary legal recourse.”

The hotel acknowledged that they did not address the electrical power failure that affected other hotels and properties within Bintan Resorts but felt that it was another unrelated matter that the man should not have made severe allegations about.

“That’s all for now. I shall spare you the ugly details and his [the man’s] choice of crude and disrespectful words.

“We hope that the unpleasant episodes may have been due to the stresses of life and hope we can let the matter rest.”

The hotel reiterated that though they were unwilling to pursue the matter further, they would take legal action if the man continued posting misleading allegations against the hotel.

Hotel Owner’s Response

Speaking to AsiaOne, the hotel’s owner, 71-year-old Eric Saw, explained that he woke the man up at 3 am as his mother was “in imminent danger”.

He added, “I was surprised that he appeared not to be concerned about his mother’s well-being.”

Saw said he did not accede to the man’s demands for a refund.

He also said that the man and his family checked out of the hotel at about 10 am.

They had left the hotel without paying a $90 “food and drink bill”.

Despite the saga, Saw said, “I’ve decided not to harbour any ill will and just put it behind us.”