Hotel Booking Scam

[keestha]

Most readers will be familiar with internet scams concerning non existant lottery winnings and huge amounts of money to be channeled out of Africa or wherever. Now there is a new variety aimed at hotel/guesthouse/resort owners, that is spreading with the speed of lightning. Every week I recieve emails which are worded like this one, the latest one that I found in my inbox:

Greetings,

I enquire for reservations for 5 couples coming for their honey moon at your property,I would like you to get back to me

with the following.

1. The availability of the dates

2. The Daily cost for the required dates

3. The total cost for the lenght of their stay.

4. Do you accept credit card payment.They would arrive on 10th January and they will depart on 20th January.

Their stay will last for 10 days.

Do get back to me with the requirements as stated above.

Kindest Regards,

Dr. Brad Schongauer

The trick works like this: They will send you details that belong to a stolen credit card, and before the bank finds out about this, they will cancel the booking and ask you to pay the money back, often using Western Union. There is also a variety in the sense that they authorize you to take more money from the credit card than the booking is worth, and than you have to pay for instance a tour operator for the transport of the guests, stating as a reason that they prefer to entrust only you with the credit card details. These emails are not so difficult to recognize for me because of course they always want to pay by credit card, and because the person sending the mail usually has a typically Anglosaxon sounding name like Sarah Johnson, but nevertheless makes a lot of mistakes writing English and in general words sentences in a way that doesn't sound so native speaker like.

Edited November 9, 2006 by keestha

[Soju]

Why on earth would any business refund a credit card purchase by Western Union? Seems to me that if a business operator is stupid enough to do that, whether it was a scam or not, they won't be in business very long. Especially for a hotel, where cancellations are commonplace, it should be no problem for any hotel to simply cancel the credit card transaction. Sounds to me as this scam isn't very well thought out, as I don't see anyone falling for it.

[donna]

if you google brad schongauer, you will see that his name comes up as a big scammer.

i work in hospitality and get at least one or two of these every day. some of them sound real, but they are all just scams.

one thing to look out for is whose name is in the 'to' field. if i receive such an email without my hotel in the 'to' field i delete it straight away.

also, the stay with these scams is usually 10 nights.

i have written back and given them a good mouthful. i am sure they have thousands of emails such as this!

[lingling]

Why on earth would any business refund a credit card purchase by Western Union? Seems to me that if a business operator is stupid enough to do that, whether it was a scam or not, they won't be in business very long. Especially for a hotel, where cancellations are commonplace, it should be no problem for any hotel to simply cancel the credit card transaction. Sounds to me as this scam isn't very well thought out, as I don't see anyone falling for it.

Exactly - I have never heard of anyone refunding a credit card transaction to anything else than the credit card originally used. I think the cc companies even require this, so check your agreement with your bank, Donna.

[minimart]

How could this scam possibly work? When I give my credit card number to a hotel it's only to guarantee I'm getting a room. They don't bill you there and then.

[keestha]

And another one just came in........as usual for 10 nights. So sorry I won't really meet Elvis. This scam really does work, don't forget many hotel owners are Thais who are not yet so familiar with the credit card system and with the internet, also their knowledge of English might leave to be desired. So here it goes:

Hello Sir /Ma

My name is Rhashii Booth I will like to book an

apartment for Mr Elvis and his family comming your

hotel from USA for occasion puporse ,and i will want

you to confirm to me if you do accept payment via

credit card if yes i want you to confirm the below

booking for my client below is their names and arrival

and departure:

Name of pax:

Mr and Mrs Elvis (Double Room)

Jennifer Elvis (single room)

Jeremy Elvis (single room)

Bill Elvis (single room)

Shantel Moore (single room)

Arrival: 15/01/2007

Depature:25/01/2007

I will want you to confirm the availabilty and fare to

enable me send you my credit card details for you to

charge and debit total amount .

Regards

Rhashii Booth

True, the name of my resort was never in the to line, they send mails like this simultaneously to many recipients.

[sbk]

We get these too, another tip is to notice the reply email, it is usually to a yahoo or hotmail account, if it were a real business, would they be using hotmail?

[monty]

Had several of those already.

Some of them are smart buggers who really do some research!

My place caters a lot to engineers and business travelers who are here for a short working stint (Eastern Seaboard, lots of foreign owned big industry).

So just a couple of days ago I get one of these booking (yep, 10 days), with details of the supposed guests coming here to do some business dealings in Mapthaput (local industry hub).

They actually checked out who my target customers are, checked on a map and found an industry area close to my place, all to make it believeable!

Modus operandi was I had to overcharge the customers to the tune of that guy's so-called commision, under the guise that he didn't have a credit card clearing machine! The difference was then to be sent to him by Western Union, minus 200 US$ for our "help".

He basically fell through because he refused to use our on-line credit card payment system, but insisted he just send the credit card details to us....The card would have bounced on-line, or he didn't have the cvv number handy

I can believe less hardened (and a bit greedy) Thai staff falling for this scam, the 200US$ is over half a months wages for the office staff!

Edited November 10, 2006 by monty

[Samuian]

I can believe less hardened (and a bit greedy) Thai staff falling for this scam, the 200US$ is over half a months wages for the office staff!

14.400,- for Thai-Office Staff?

..... german national, well hardened, speaking 3 languages, highly skilled in guests - customer relations and many other tourism, hotel and catering fields?

12 years uninterupted live-experience on Samui, holding a current WP and Non-Immigrant "B" Visa since my first employment in Thailand!

Looking for a new job in this field, contact via PN.

[monty]

Front office staff, fluent in written and spoken English (not Thinglish), computer literate, able to act out of their normal job, can get easily over 10.000 Baht/month...

If a foreigner would offer his services for anything under 2000 Baht/day I would seriously doubt his capabilities!

Heck, he would need to take home 60,000 a month (before taxes) to even get his yearly extension based on working in the Kingdom...

Declare anything under 30,000 on your workpermit application and the labour department will probably not even give you a workpermit to start with!

And no, I'm not looking for foreign staff, both me and my foreign partner can handle things pretty OK

[Samuian]

Thanks, for letting me know!

Did I write anything about salary expectations?

"Lacking capabilities" would I be employed for 12 consecutive years?