Today's Overreaction: Man's Credit Card Declines At Hotel, Goes On Rampage

Police in Oklahoma say John Parsley, 62,
rammed his truck into a hotel because
the front desk declined his credit card.

According to police, John Edward Parsley, 62 of Gonzales, Texas tried to check into the Comfort Inn in Alva, Oklahoma, but his credit card declined.

He had to pay cash.

A situation like that might vaguely irritate you and me, but we'd get over it in, oh, I don't know, two seconds.

Not Parsley, oh, no. It was an OUTRAGE the hotel declined his credit card. So he did what any American would, or so he thought. He slammed his big pickup truck through the lobby and into the front desk.

He barely missing two receptionists who scrambled to get out of the way and succeeded, just barely.

You can view the surveillance camera video of the crash at the bottom of this post.

The Enid (OK) News & Eagle reported that apparently, Parsley had contacted Alva Police about the credit card decline.

The News and Eagle said the officer said he'd go inside and discuss the credit card issue with management. Office Wade Sutton's report said, "I observed Parsley reach up and place his vehicle in drive and accelerate rapidly, crashing into the hotel front entrance and into the lobby."

After the crash, he got out of the truck with his hands up to be greeted by Alva police, who were not amused.

He told police  he drove into the hotel because "they thought he was bluffing, and he proved he wasn't."

On the bright side, Parsley got some accommodations that night. Authorities charged him with assault and battery, and malicious destruction of property and held for lack of $1 million bond.

On the ugly side - there's lots of ugly here but this is the ugliest - racism might have been a factor here. Parsley said he kept having trouble with "Indian" hotel personnel.

Also, I'm laughing, but this could have been tragic. The two women behind the desk could have been killed!

Here's the video of this idiot crashing into the hotel:

TV Reporter Exacts Revenge On Credit Card Thief

Accuased credit card thief Farah Parks being
confronted in a Texas hotel by a TV reporter
whose credit card information she allegedly stole.  

It's so infuriating!

Someone gets your credit card number, or buys it on the black market and has a field day.

Even if you don't lose money, it's a pain in the neck to freeze your account, get a new card, etc. etc.

This very thing happened to Steve Noviello, the consumer reporter for Fox 4 television news in Dallas-Fort Worth.

He discovered the problem pretty quickly, notified the police and placed a fraud alert on his card. The alert, well, alerted him that his credit card info was being used at a Dallas area hotel.

So, Noviello decided to go there for a look see.

There, he found Farah Parks being arrested by police for using Noviello's credit card and being led by authorities out of Room 239 of the local Hilton.

With that, he had the what had to be extreme satisfaction of getting Parks on camera, pretty much refusing to be interviewed, and Noviello intrepidly asking questions of her anyway.

At first, she denied using Noviello's credit card number, then said she got it from someone else.

Then, police, Parks and Noviello all managed to crowd into an elevator down to the first floor.

Here's how the interview went:
Noviello: I'd love for you to be able to help me, Farah. Where are you from? Are you local?
Parks: I've just made some bad choices in my life. I'm aware of that and I apologize.
Novello: OK, I appreciate your apology and I"m just hoping  you might be able to help me.. I'm gonna come and make a request to come visit you after you get arrested and we can talk, OK?

It was not OK. Surprise! Parks did not agree to an interview.

That, probably, was a disappointment for Noviello. But at least he got his revenge, on air, for the credit card info theft.

I still have mixed opinions of public shamings like this, but my base instinct in this case is go for it.

Here's the whole video of what happened with the attempted interview with Farah Parks: