Identity thieves love to target the hospitality sector because there is a lot of secure records that are collected and stored which include – credit card information and personally identifiable information (PII).
Hotel guests may not even know that they are being targeted directly by these fraudsters.
Make sure to be aware of these 5 surprising hotel scams.
- Bogus Courtesy Call: Guests who have just checked in are often given “courtesy calls’, to make sure everything is in order. Scammers are aware of this and may just do the same. Be leary of when the “front desk” caller is asking for your card information again because it was declined and needs to be re-verified. Avoid this scam: It is not common for hotel clerks to ask for your credit information over the phone. Be sure to go to the front desk yourself if this happens.
- Emergency After-Hours Call: At a Dallas, Texas Inn hotels guests were contacted by the “front desk” at 2:30 am, this happened a few years ago. They were advised that the computer had an unexpected error and credit card information needed to be re-verified before an audit that would happen at 3 am. Avoid this scam: Never give out your credit card information over the phone, especially in an urgent or unexpected situation. Go to the front desk to make sure this is happening.
Read the remaining list at the source site!
