Unauthorised transaction on Laser Card...

Ronan H

I wouldn't mind peoples opinions on this...

Today I noticed that someone had clocked up a transaction for €130 on my Laser Card at The Morgan Hotel in Dublin on November 6th. I was in work that night, my wife was at home (no smart comments please ) and it looks like someone had a night out at my expense, illegally of course!

Here's the strange thing, I did stay at the hotel with my wife on October 25th fo one night. The strange part is the timeline of when the nights were booked:

- October 9th @ 3:46pm: Someone books a room for November 6th with my name , address and card details...

- October 16th @ 11:18pm: I book a room for October 25th...

Isn't it strange that the unauthorised booking was made BEFORE I made our booking? In fact it was made before myself and my wife hadn't even decided to take a night away, so, mad coincidence or something else at play?

The hotel even told me what room was stayed in and the booking was taken by the same lady! I am so annoyed that I even know what room they stayed in. There's probably a fake signature on file in the hotel for that night and probably even footage of the fecker who ripped me off!

ANyway, has anyone else ever experienced this?

I have to go and report it to the Gardaí also and fill out forms at my local bank etc... What a pain in the arse!

Ro

jimoc

Did the hotel explain to you how or why they took a transaction from your card without the card being pysically present in the place?

spongeman

it can be done as a mail order transaction. No need for the customer to be present.

drunkmonkey

That's very strange, why would a con man book a night in the morgan as well, it makes no sense...
Your missing a part of the puzzle..

mikemac

You're certain your wife was definitly at home eh??

Have you ever stayed there before? So they might have your laser card details from before?

Now if it was a simple case of being double charged it can be easily explained and these things happen.
But this is more serious, is this the only charge? Maybe your card was cloned, if such a thing is possible.
I wouldn't go the Gardai yet, get the head receptionist and duty manager to investigate and get you more info and a timeline of events today, not tomorrow but by 5pm today

faceman

The guest staying the night that you werent there would have had to sign a guest card.

Inform the hotel and your bank in writing of the transaction. The bank will follow up with the gardai if necessary.

Sounds like there is a piece of the puzzle missing.

eth0_

jimoc wrote: »

Did the hotel explain to you how or why they took a transaction from your card without the card being pysically present in the place?

I imagine his card was cloned, so there was 'a' card present, just not the legitimate one.

kmick

I would ask for a copy of the signed receipt from the hotel. Ask them to scan it in and send it to you. My bet is they wont have one.

eth0_

I think the OP should let the Gardai and his bank deal with that stuff, tbh.

jhegarty

Was there any chance a charge was outstanding from the first visit.

There has been posts here before about hotels charging for stays a few months later.

Sponge Bob

Card Not Present Fraud is common . There WILL be CCTV pictures and you are entitled to go to the hotel and see them yourself at the time of the transaction and ensure that they are not deleted before the guards get there .

p15574

Without casting aspersions :rolleyes:, sounds like an inside job.I think the most likely explanation is that the date/time of the fraudulent booking is faked and backdated to before the cloner got your details, to avoid suspicion from being the one who did the cloning. Let's say you make a transaction on, say, October 25th, and the person who takes ALL your details (name, address) and physically handles your card then uses those details for the other booking, but pretends it was booked a few weeks previously, when they weren't on duty...

As someone else said, out of your hands now, but still intriguing...

Ronan H

p15574 wrote: »

Without casting aspersions :rolleyes:, sounds like an inside job.

That did cross my mind to be honest. There are a lot of variables to be considered.

- I have stayed there before, but I think it was a different laser card I had at the time though, I will have to check...
- 100% sure that there are no outstanding charges from my visit...
- I was wondering how they could have managed to pull it off without having the card present, according to my bank the transaction occurred a 2:23am on the morning of the November 7th, which seems like an odd time for a transaction to go through...
- I will be asking to see CCTV footage and also the signature that was used by the person to sign for the room...
- I'm wondering if the hotel has a legal obligation to report it and / or follow it up with the Gardaí? As in, if they have footage of the person entering the room / signing in / leaving etc... do they have to act on it?

I am going to Pearse St. station to fill out a report tomorrow and I will be toddling along to the hotel to speak to someone in person about it also. I have also filled out a transaction dispute form in my local BOI branch too so lets see what their fraud squad come up with...

Thanks for all the comments!

R

eth0_

How could it be an 'inside job'? If it was a card transaction it's gone straight into the hotel's bank account, it's not like someone was dipping their hand into the til.

p15574

eth0_ wrote: »

How could it be an 'inside job'? If it was a card transaction it's gone straight into the hotel's bank account, it's not like someone was dipping their hand into the til.

Yeah, but someone got a night in the hotel, probably with room service and all the trimmings.

Thoie

Head wrote: »

according to my bank the transaction occurred a 2:23am on the morning of the November 7th, which seems like an odd time for a transaction to go through...

I don't know about the Morgan Hotel specifically (never even heard of the place), but some places do still have older style machines which pretty much confirm that the credit card is a credit card, and not random plastic, then all the actual transactions are batched through in the middle of the night.

It might not be the case, but if you see the footage from that time and there's nothing on it, remember that the card might have been swiped a lot earlier. Most hotels allow checkin from 2pm, so in theory it could be any time from then until 2:30am.

spongeman

You do need the card to perform the transaction. Number and expiry date will do.

If the transaction was that late at night it had to be somebody on the inside.

_Kooli_

I worked in a hotel many years ago. Things like this are rife in the business.
When they used the paper for card imprints some of the people used to keep these and use them for charging up call cards.

Im sure this is easier now where you just need the number and expiry date.

GerardKeating

eth0_ wrote: »

How could it be an 'inside job'? If it was a card transaction it's gone straight into the hotel's bank account, it's not like someone was dipping their hand into the til.

An old trick (where a business did both cc and cash) was to "replace" a cash sale with a CC sale.

GerardKeating

Head wrote: »

I wouldn't mind peoples opinions on this...

Today I noticed that someone had clocked up a transaction for €130 on my Laser Card at The Morgan Hotel in Dublin on November 6th. I was in work that night, my wife was at home (no smart comments please ) and it looks like someone had a night out at my expense, illegally of course!

Here's the strange thing, I did stay at the hotel with my wife on October 25th fo one night. The strange part is the timeline of when the nights were booked:

- October 9th @ 3:46pm: Someone books a room for November 6th with my name , address and card details...

- October 16th @ 11:18pm: I book a room for October 25th...

Isn't it strange that the unauthorised booking was made BEFORE I made our booking? In fact it was made before myself and my wife hadn't even decided to take a night away, so, mad coincidence or something else at play?

The hotel even told me what room was stayed in and the booking was taken by the same lady! I am so annoyed that I even know what room they stayed in. There's probably a fake signature on file in the hotel for that night and probably even footage of the fecker who ripped me off!

ANyway, has anyone else ever experienced this?

I have to go and report it to the Gardaí also and fill out forms at my local bank etc... What a pain in the arse!

Ro

Assuming your Laser card is Chip&Pin, then dispute the transactions with your bank, unless it was Pin verified it is up to the hotel to prove you stayed them.

If the transaction was Pin verified, it is most likely that your card was used since most all clone card are mag stripe only, could someone have borrowed it?

If the transaction was Card Not present, mostly likely your bank will refund you no matter what the hotel says.

ellejay

a lot of businesses have credit card machine's that hold the details and "batch off" at at set time. possibly this could explain the timing issue.

does the date of the "spurious" transaction fall after you made the booking for your actual night away?

i ask this because maybe the receptionist made a note of your number, but mixed it up and used your number to pay someone elses's accoount?

it could just be a mistake, it mightn't be someone trying to rip you off.

eitherway, looking forward to hearing the outcome.

seamus

eth0_ wrote: »

How could it be an 'inside job'? If it was a card transaction it's gone straight into the hotel's bank account, it's not like someone was dipping their hand into the til.

I've noticed that it's extremely rare for a hotel charge to go straight through onto my card unless I've done a pre-pay deal. Often it's at least a week after the fact before it appears on the bill.

So it's very plausible that the card data is stored for a period by the hotel and then sent to the processor in batches.

If this was the case, your card data could be used to "dip the till" so to speak. So you check in on 25th and your card details from the original booking are stored in the database waiting to have the cash taken off it. Someone working the hotel on finds the other booking for 6th November and changes it from a cash booking to a card booking, using your details. Then they pocket the cash, your card gets charged and the hotel's books balance.

However it's more likely that your card was cloned on the 25th, and then the woman who checked in on 6th simply used that cloned card. You don't have to check-in using the same card that you used to make the booking, and I would say that the original booking would get updated with the new card details.
This would make it appear that she booked on 9th October using your card when in reality a different card was used.

There would be good logic in using the cloned card in the same hotel - a different hotel would be more likely to rouse suspicion, but you could easily overlook a charge from a hotel that you stayed in.

It could also just be a system or clerical error and you card details were duplicated into a second booking.

Chief99

A "similar" incident happened to me about 2 years ago when I had booked into a hotel and used my credit card number as deposit. When we went to check in they had no record of my booking and I couldn't remember the booking number I was given at the time. I asked them to lookup my Credit card details on their system and they said for security reasons they couldn't. We were eventually given another room but as it turned out that room was a disaster (no heat etc.) and we were moved on the second night and as an apology we were given the stay for free. Anyways when we went to check out it turns out that when another couple went to pay my credit card details were on their invoice and I'm not sure who pointed it out but lucky we weren't charged. To say I was unimpressed is an understatement!
A long shot but maybe something like this happened here?

Ronan H

I have spoken to the "front of house" manager about the situation and he is checking their registration records to see what signature was provided when the person checked in. He is also going to check the CCTV records for the reception area at the time that the room card was coded and given to the customer.

I will be paying him a visit tomorrow to speak with him face to face and see what information he has acquired from the above enquiries.

updates to follow!

Richard Dower

Any updates on this?....sounds a bit interesting, i have my suspicions though :-)

Ronan H

Hey thanks for the reminder, I had forgotten about this thread!

The FOH Manager said that there was no signature on the registration card and also that the paper tab (that is usually torn off when someone checks in) had not been removed. Also the keys for the room were never coded. All of this suggests that nobody showed up to honour the booking. Fair enough...

I asked him about the time of the charge that was made to the card: 2:23am. He said that the night manager on duty on that date probably put through the full cost of the room because it was booked and nobody turned up for the booking, also fair enough...

This doesn't explain the booking being made in the first place but it does give a bit more creedence to the possibility that it was a booking made in error by someone (that would explain nobody turning up), the only thing still strange about that is the issue with the dates i.e. that the booking was made before we had even decided to go to the hotel in the fist place...

He is issuing a refund of the full amount and he sounded quite determined to dig deeper into it and find out why it happened and how it happened, which I guess is proper order from his point of view in case someone is up to something bold in there!

I reported it to the Gardaí also but I am not expecting them to send out the troops, although the guy who took my statement said he would drop into the hotel and sniff around (not using them words exactly)...

So that's the latest!

Ro