Hotel Booking Scam
On June 5th, the entire Florida Congressional delegation wrote a letter (see below) to the FTC asking them to look into the Hotel Booking Scam plaguing the state and to protect more consumers from falling victim to it. Some of the deceptive acts include:
-The rogue URL was almost exactly the same as the actual hotel’s URL.
-Reservations were lost/cancelled last minute.
-Guests showing up at the hotel and the hotel not having any record of their reservation.
-Special accommodation requests weren’t met (they were never passed along from the third party).
-A call center was set up so guests thought they were talking to a reservation agent at the hotel but weren’t.
This also comes just weeks after Sen. Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the FTC and the Arizona Congressional delegation wrote a letter to the DOJ asking them to work together with the FTC to look into this.
