Vacation Nightmare: Scam Targets Hotel Room Phones

so what's worse than waiting for your food to be delivered how about if it never shows up now some of those Flyers under your door are more than just annoying they could be helping crooks pull off a fast food fast one and that's not the only way clever scammers can come after your money so before you head off for that last summer holiday how can you protect yourself from those seriously sneaky schemes here's ABC's Lindsay Davis k Paul's was one of my favorite restaurants it began as a fun trip for this mother-daughter duo but for Chris and Katy by Sec their stay at this New Orleans hotel quickly turned into a nightmare it's about midnight and our hotel room phone rings and it's one of the ladies from the front desk explaining I need your card number to put on file otherwise you know you need to get out of the room and I was like oh oh my okay this lady's serious so I gave her my card number um and that was that so Katy gave her debit card number and went back to sleep but the next morning I woke up and immediately thought to myself there was something sketchy about that call she checks her bank account and realizes all her money is gone but it turns out it wasn't the hotel front desk Katy had given her information to a scammer and this particular scam is so common many hotels including the one Chris and Katy stayed at post warnings about it the American Hotel and Lodging industry says it provides regular updates to hotel yours on scammers targeting hotel guests like this one the Pizza scamp you'll find fliers under your door when you check into the hotel you call you give them your credit card information you order your pizza and nothing comes because they're really not a restaurant it's not a restaurant it's not a pizzeria it's nothing it's a thief there's the Wi-Fi scam and that's where you in your hotel you're searching for Wi-Fi system you find the system you think is the hotel's Wi-Fi system but it isn't and be very careful with the kind of information that you provide and the kind of things that you do stay away from banking transactions maybe don't look at your email in a statement to ABC news representative from the st. Christopher hotel writes every guest who checks into our hotel is given a credit card scam letter making the guests aware of the scam and advising the guests not to divulge any credit card or other sensitive information but the bisex say they didn't see the warning letter until it was too late and it's not just at hotels where you can fall victim to these kinds of scams as millions of Americans hit the road next week for the Labor Day weekend thieves are also preying on ATM machines and gas stations with a practice called skimming they knew it was stealing I knew it was wrong dan de filippi is a reformed credit card hacker who got busted and switched sides to avoid prison time I was printing my own fake credit cards and I would go to the store purchase electronics and I would resell them he spent two years training agents in the dark art of skimming he spoke to my colleague Nick want the ATM cashing was the easiest and best way to make money and I was making thousands of dollars a day in cash doing that but de Philippe's favorite target gas stations installing gadgets like this one inside the pumps gas station skimming is one of the easiest and best ways of doing it because it's hidden the person using it will never see it it only takes seconds to open it up and put it in there so this is the reader that will be inside the gas pump and so you would just swipe it through and it would read it right here nobody would know the difference when investigators at the Arizona Department of weights and measures were here checking for skimming devices found a skimmer inside this gas pump they decided it was time to fight fire with fire we inserted one of these little night-vision spy cams in the back of the dispenser and bingo here's a view from that camera inside apparently showing a man and woman team caught red-handed and what we have here we have the guy and I have mrs. Skinner it's awesome they start bickering when they can't find any of their devices so it's almost like a husband and wife team arguing about wherever their skimmer is because somebody got it and that was us we got it law enforcement is still on the hunt for mr. and mrs. skimmer but in the meantime there are some things you can and should do to protect your digits rule number one never give credit card information over the phone once you've checked into a room go to the front desk you want to see the person who's getting this information from you I tell family members friends your travel don't tell don't believe anything over the telephone number two check in with a credit card instead of a debit card they can move that money out of your bank account in a blink of an eye and if you're fueling up choose a pump near the attendant crooks prefer to operate in the shadows or you can always pay in cash lastly no matter where you are check your account a lot most companies will erase any fraudulent charges on your credit card if you report them within 60 days it happens in the best places the most secure locations things like this can potentially happen as for the bisex they say their trip was ruined we were especially embarrassed because we consider ourselves kind of savvy to that sort of thing you know like we couldn't possibly be scammed like that we would fall for that the advice we consistently heard it's fine to let your hair down on vacation but don't let down your guard for nightline I'm Lindsay Davis in New York

Channel: ABC News

Views: 507,847

Rating: 4.7611942 out of 5

Keywords: vacation nightmare, scams, hotel rooms, credit card scam, predators, thieves, unsuspecting vacationers, hotel room phones, pizza scam, abc, abcnews

Id: xi3cmDss_c8

Length: 5min 50sec (350 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 26 2014