N Carolina Hotels Being Targeted By Scammers – Alert Your Hotel Staff

Some hotels in North Carolina have reported incidents of scammers targeting night shift employees, including night auditor at hotels. Ken Greene, interim president and CEO at AAHOA, has also reported about this scam on his social media handle.

Their modus operandi is as follows – a scammer calls the hotel at late night hours, claiming to be a representative of a utility or a fire alarm company. The caller would tell a well-rehearsed story about some bills needing to be paid. The staff would be asked to transfer funds immediately for this. At other times, the caller might pretend to be the owner of the hotel.

The staff are given various options to transfer the funds, including using a money transfer service at a nearby gas station or bitcoin transfer, etc. Many times the staff become confused at the unexpected call in the middle of the night, and there is a high probability of them falling for the trick.

Hoteliers need to make their employees, specially the night staff aware of these types of calls. Also assure your employees that you will never call or ask them to transfer funds during the late nights.

If your hotel already experienced such an incident and fell for the scam, you should report it immediately to the local police and enlist their help. Your timely action could be useful in preventing further such incidents for other unsuspecting hotel staff.