M'sian Host Maggy Wang Got A Late-Night Call In Her Hotel Room From Stranger Who Claimed She Gave Him Her Number — She'd Never Met Him

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Solo travelling can be liberating. But being alone also means you are probably a little more alert when something doesn't feel quite right.

For Maggy Wang it was when her hotel room phone started ringing at 11.42pm. The Malaysian host, content creator and fitness entrepreneur was on a solo trip to Bangkok. 

On the other end of the line was a stranger's voice, and the man made a ludicrous claim. 

"He asked what am I doing, casually, and didn't sound like hotel staff. I got confused and asked, 'Who are you?' and that's when he said that I gave him my room number at the lobby,” Maggy tells 8days.sg.

Except she hadn't.

The man didn't say when they'd supposedly met and, as far as she could tell, didn't know anything else about her besides her room number, so she hung up.

"No woman will feel safe receiving a strange call from a man in the middle of the night," she says.

After the call, Maggy shared what had happened on Instagram Stories.

Her followers urged her to inform the hotel, so she contacted reception and began recording the conversation as a precaution.

"I wanted evidence just in case anything happens. I was worried the man would come to my room or something,” she explains. Just at that moment, her doorbell rang.

Talk about bad timing. 

Maggy immediately asked whether the hotel had sent anyone up. When the receptionist initially said no, she panicked.

"I really thought it was him," she tells us.

Thankfully, it turned out to be a technician.

Maggy's room phone had been malfunctioning earlier, and the hotel had already sent someone up to fix it.

The receptionist she was speaking to simply hadn't known the technician was on his way.

Maggy was very relieved when she realised who was at the door. 

She was also impressed by how quickly the hotel had responded.

After the phone was fixed, Maggy received another call about five minutes later.

This time, it was hotel staff who'd informed her they'd checked their records and confirmed that the strange call earlier had come from another guest in the hotel.

Maggy says the hotel knew which room it originated from, though staff didn't disclose the room number to her.

She doesn't know whether staff spoke directly to the guest but believes they "did the necessary".

The hotel then blocked further calls to her room, checked that her floor was clear and informed the manager about what had happened.

Close to 1am, staff called Maggy one final time to assure her that she was safe and could get some rest.

"I felt a lot safer after the call and, true enough, nothing happened," she says.

"It was definitely hard to sleep [that night]. I kept waking up every hour," Maggy tells us, adding that it was better the following night.

She chose not to switch hotels, and felt safe for the rest of her trip.

Maggy doesn't blame the hotel for the incident. In her original Instagram post, she praised staff for responding quickly and prioritising her safety.

So how did a complete stranger know which room to call? Maggy still has no idea.

In her original post, Maggy suggested the man may have approached another woman in the lobby who, wanting to reject him, gave him a random room number that happened to be hers.

But she stresses to us that this was simply speculation.

"Honestly, just my best guess. I don't know the real reason he got my room number,” she says,

Maggy says she's a frequent solo traveller and has never experienced anything like this before. While this incident hasn't put her off travelling alone, it has made her even more cautious.

She now makes it a point to double-lock her hotel door, does not say her room number out loud when other people may be listening, including at places such as hotel breakfast venues.

"Something I never thought much about until this incident," she admits.

Maggy already takes other precautions when travelling alone, including sharing her live location with a friend and avoiding quiet alleys.

She also says the experience reinforced why she's willing to spend more on accommodation with proper security.

"I will always book a decent hotel because it really makes a difference with safety and security," she says.

Her original post drew many reactions, though there was one that Maggy found particularly frustrating.

While many women said they understood why she'd been frightened, she says some men accused her of overreacting or suggested the incident was fake.

For Maggy, those comments highlighted a bigger issue.

"It's a clear indication that women's fear towards their own safety is still seen like something we're expected to justify, rather than something that gets taken seriously the first time," she says.

She hopes men can be allies too, rather than placing the burden on women to prove that a situation is dangerous before taking their concerns seriously.

"The fear that women feel is a privilege that men don't realise they have,” she said in a later IG video.

For anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation, her advice is simple: inform the hotel immediately.

"Ask for a room change, if necessary, particularly if access to guest floors isn't controlled," she says.