A recent story coming out of the Chicago area has inspired me to remind everyone that reads this blog to keep your credit cards safe. Even routine purchases can lead to identity theft.
Consider this … just a couple days ago, police arrested 10 hotel owners, employees, and managers from seven hotels in Illinois. The charge? Selling the credit card numbers of their guests to thieves. Even scarier? Police believe this scam is taking place across the country.
It took a total of 50 officers, with the help of FBI forensic computer experts, to crack the case. The investigation had been taking place for four months in a sting that was termed “Operation Sleep Over” and involved two Super 8 Hotels and a Holiday Inn Express. In one county, the credit card account numbers and toll free numbers used to find out the current credit card balance, were sold in batches of 10 for anywhere between $1,000 and $5,000.
The big break in the case came when police arrested a man that was involved with the scam. This man, who had bought a mind-boggling 10,000 credit card numbers from one hotel and thousands from other hotels in the Joliet area in order to support his gambling addiction, became a police informant. During the sting, the man purchased 150 different credit card numbers while wearing a wire tap. Forensic experts also took entire computers and copied hard drives as further evidence.
The informant went on to tell police that he learned of this identity theft technique from somewhere outside of Joliet and that he knew it was taking place in other cities. He also told police that he would charge anywhere from $500 to $15,000 on the credit cards he purchased, then would sell the items at a reduced price in order to pay for his gambling addiction.
Unfortunately, if the owner of the hotel is in on the scam, there isn’t much you can do to prevent this from happening to you (other than to avoid staying in a hotel altogether). This is why it is so important for you to take advantage of your right (mandated by law) for consumers to get a free credit report once per year. Not to overstate the obvious, but make absolutely sure to diligently check your credit card statements each and every month. The earlier you catch the abuse, the better the chance of putting a stop to it and putting the thief behind bars.
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