Phone Scam: Red Flag Alert

 

We had just checked into the hotel on a trip in the Friendliest city in the world, Charleston, SC and wanting greatly to unwind. Dinner and a nice jazz outing ended with us retiring in the room to retire. As I laid my head down the hotel phone rang. It was a voice that I had not heard before. "I'm Will Owens from the front desk. I hope all is well with your stay. The early manager didn't swipe your card right and we will need to do it again. Can you please give me the number and let me take care it for you."

 

Red Flag

 

1. Never give your card number over the phone.

2. Always verify who you are talking to.

3. A few steps takes care of a lot of headaches.

 

My response was okay I'll take care of it when I check out.

His response was (of course) "Well...that won't do. We need to take care of this now or you may be charged the hotel's maximum rate or your stay may be interrupted. Let's just go ahead and take care of this."

 

Now at this time I'm beginning to get upset and radar sends all type signals.

 

Okay let me call you back I say and quickly hang up.

Immediately I call the front desk. The manager has no idea what I was talking about and was as unconcerned and three year old watching cartoons.

 

The next morning I ask to talk to the head manager and retold the story.

Unfortunately the manager was watching the same cartoon show. She was polite and listened but something wasn't getting through. Finally she said that the hotel has heard some customers talk of this and that one even gave out their number and lost money but there was nothing that they could do.

 

Needless to say I won't be staying at that hotel ever again. I feel that the least they should have done was to warn customers of this and perhaps post a note near the phone.

 

Click the phone for an article on some advice on Phone scams