Pls Read - Clever Scam using Hotel phones

[VivekB]

I'm pretty involved with our local citizens policing group and our experience is that crime like this is typically localized & random, and hence hard to catch the bad guys. I'm not a member of any other Disney Boards, please repost wherever you think Disney vacationers may be staying.

A little background: Due to my old job, i've travelled more than 99% of the population. In the past 20 years, i've easily spent more than 2000 nights in hotels, with the average stay being <2 nights. In a 4 year timeframe, I spent >200 nights/year on the road, switching hotels every 1-2 business days.

AKA, If this could happen to me, this could happen to YOU!

I fell victim (then redeemed myself) to a very clever hotel scam a few hours ago. I'm currently at the Anaheim Fairfield Inn (by Marriott). At 5:30 this morning, someone called the room claiming to be at the front desk, and said that their computer systems had gotten screwed up and they needed my credit card info again. I told him I didn't want to get up, but he kept increasing the discount they'd give me, and told me I was welcome to come down to the front desk to give it to them. He said they needed it by 6am to close their books for the night. I was exhausted from walking yesterday, in deep REM sleep, had my young kids in the next bed, and just wanted to get back to sleep. With that combo, I read off my CC info to him, including my zipcode & 3 digit CVV code.

I was irritated at being woken up, so I went to the bathroom. Then I realized what I had just done, called the front desk to ask them if they had just called me. They said no, their entire system is automated, they couldn't take a CC even if they wanted to.

I immediately called our bank and cancelled the card, thank god nothing had been charged although it had only been 4 minutes since I gave out the #.

WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE: Refuse to give out the # over the phone to someone who called me. Tell them I was happy to call the front desk back and give it to them.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one they called, thieves like this typically call a few dozen folks and get as many #s as they can, then process it all. Hopefully this post prevents at least 1 person from falling victim to this.

- A guy who's now a little older, a little wiser, but hasn't had his vacation ruined at all since he clued in within minutes of doing something dumb. And now, off to DLR for the day!

 

[DSNY4ever]

Aww man, luckily you cancelled it in time! They were doing this in Disneyworld a while back too. So rotten!

 

[VivekB]

Oh one more thing that's saving us - despite my initial desire, I brought alternative credit cards with us. thank god, I would have been screwed if this was my only one.

Signing off for the day. BTW, we got to the park at 4:30pm yesterday, <5 min wait for the lines @paradise pier (Mulhulland/etc), and only a 40ish min standby for the Soaring Over California. And, we walked up to a table at 6:30pm in downtown disney at Uva bar (the outdoor area for Catal, outstanding food).

Tons and tons of high schoolers, since it was grad night and all. I'd say they were rowdy, but I vaguely remember high school and they're a heckuva lot nicer than many of my friends were at that age.

 

[Sherry E]

Hmmm....seems like someone else posted a similar story a while back. I guess it's happening more often.

Perhaps I'm suspicious by nature, but I would never expect a legitimate hotel to call me at 5:30 a.m. unless it was an absolute life-threatening emergency. No matter what time their books had to close, they know that most of their guests are likely sleeping at that hour. They're going to inconvenience guests and wake them up because they have to tidy up their bookkeeping? I don't think so. I wouldn't have bought it. So that would have been my first red flag. I would not have given the info over the phone at that time of the morning. Maybe if they had caught me at 2 p.m. or 5 p.m. and they sounded convincing, my guard would have been down and I would have believed it. But the time of the call is what would have made me suspicious.

In any case, if they made a convincing enough argument, I might - might - schlep down to front desk to discuss it when I got dressed. But I wouldn't give the info out over the phone at 5:30 a.m.

What the thieves are trying to do is catch guests with their guard down at some crazy hour of the morning, when they don't have the ability to think clearly yet. They want to catch you when you are not at your most alert.

 

[PinkBudgie]

I believe I saw someone post something similar on the WDW boards. Someone mentioned that the caller picks a common last name and asks for it when calling the hotel. Don't know if picking a room number at random would work for them or not.

 

[Peace.love.mickey]

Wow!!!!

 

[RweTHEREyet]

Here is what I posted on another thread. This happened to us the end of May. Evidently they are still at it.

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Got a phone call this morning in our room at the Villas at the Grand Californian around 7:00 a.m. and the man said he was Robert the hotel manager and they had a mixup in our address, was it a street or drive. Since he woke me up, I asked him to repeat it and he said they needed to get it straight in their computer. I asked him what address they had on file and at that point he hung up.

I called back to the hotel and the operator that answered me was the one who actually put the call thru to the room. She said this had started last week and that scammers were picking common names and then asking for that person's room. She said once they verified the address that they the would try and verify a credit card number.

She said that there should have been a notice in our welcome packet about this, but there wasn't. So, if you are going to be staying here, just be warned.

 

[VivekB]

Follow-up: I talked to the hotel manager, she said 25 rooms had been hit (and counting) as of 9am, they had never had anything like this, their loss prevention unit had descended on the hotel.

Had I been thinking clearly, everything folks had posted would have occurred to me. But honestly I was in the midst of deep REM, and was barely aware that I was on the phone. The second I actually "woke up" (aka, used the bathroom), I realized what I had done and cancelled the card.

The upside is that hotel mgmt were EXTREMELY nice and apologetic; we were late getting to Goofy's Kitchen for breakfast since I overslept as a result of the 5:30am wakeup, and they gave us a free ride in the shuttle. (nobody got out of bed until 8:00am!) I'm a Marriott member and they're doing some other stuff, but honestly I was in a rush to get the day started so I wasn't really paying attention.