The Hotel Scam You Need to Know About
The phone rings in the middle of the night. Pick it up and you may fall victim to the latest hotel scam. Here's the lowdown on how to protect your personal and credit card info on your next trip.
A new wave of scammers are targeting hotel guests by pretending to be calling from the front desk, requesting personal information and credit card details.
The fraudsters, according to Lifehacker, call hotel rooms, claiming to be hotel managers or front desk clerks reporting an error with their booking, asking them to clarify credit card numbers over the phone.
One Reddit contributor experienced this on a recent hotel stay in Vegas: "Sunday morning at 10:30 my hotel phone rings and it’s the manager letting me know their computer system is down at the moment…He lets me know that because the system is down they’re a few hours behind on recovering data. He confirmed my room number and offered me an extended checkout (which sounded great from the hangover) and also offered to comp our least expensive night’s stay for the inconvenience. He mentioned there were 30+ people in the checkout line and offered to check me out via the phone and said I could leave my keys as I left. He asked me to confirm my credit card number and I got a little hesitant and said I would feel more comfortable providing that in person."
Luckily the Redditor picked up on the scam and headed to the lobby where the front desk confirmed that the call had not come from inside the hotel.
Consumer Affairs have reported similar examples up and down the country. Their advice on avoiding these scams? Never provide personal info and credit card numbers to incoming callers. Our advice? Check in but don’t completely check out.
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