Hotel Phishing: Credit Card Fraud via Room Phone Call

Since some years (about 2008) scammers used to place phone call to hotel rooms, talking about some problems with credit card infos: this is a very widespread trick to induce the victim to provide the details of your credit card, and steal your money.

In a case, the scammer called at 4 a.m. and reached a lot of hotels’ guests: they said that The guest’s credit card information had been lost, and was needed right away. Tipically their demands to be connected i.e to “Room 237” will be stonewalled by those managing the property’s switchboard unless and until they can also pony up your name that matches with the hotel’s records.

• See also: Rome hotel

Example: you arrive at your hotel, and check in at the reception. When checking in, you give the front desk your credit card information (for all the charges for your room): number, expiry date and CVC (back of the card). Be carefull now: when you are in your room, later, someone calls the front desk and asks, for example, for “Room 237” (your room, in this example). Your phone rings in your room. You answer, and the person on the other end says the following, ‘This is the front desk. When checking in, we came cross a problem with your charge card information. Please re-read me your credit card number and verify the last 3 digits numbers on the reverse side of your charge card.‘ This is an attempt to steal your credit card informations!

Scammers place phone calls to hotel rooms to dupe guests into giving up their credit card info.

For these reasons many hotels today follow the policy of not allowing their switchboard operators to connect an incoming call to a guest’s room, unless the caller can supply the guest’s name , so the actual prevalence of the scam described above may be rather low.

the caller was polite and apologetic. He even said she would receive a 40 percent discount to compensate her for the inconvenience. […] “He sounded very credible” she says. “It’s easy to see how someone would fall for it.”

You must be on guard!

“This is a very old and common scam in the hotel business” (Anthony Roman

Not thinking anything unusual, you might give this person your information, since the call seems to come from the front desk. But actually, it is a scam. Someone is calling from someplace other than the hotel front desk. They ask for a random room number, then, sounding very professional, ask you for credit card information and address information. They are so smooth, you will think you are talking to the front desk.

If you ever encounter this problem in your travels, tell the caller that you will come down to the front desk to clear up any problems. Then, go to the front desk and ask if there was a problem. If there was none, inform the manager of the hotel that someone acting like a front desk employee called to scam you of your credit card information.

Sources: snopes.com, nbcnews.com

Tags: tourist scams