The Ritz Hotel in London has launched an investigation into a data breach in which fraudsters may have posed as staff members to steal credit card data.
In a series of messages posted on Twitter dated August 15, luxury hotel chain Ritz said that on August 12, the company was notified of a “possible data breach in its food and beverage reservations system.”.
The Ritz London added that this may have led to a breach of “some of our customers’ personal data”.
While the hotel said the security incident did not involve credit card information or payment details, the leaked data may have been used in a social engineering designed to steal more valuable financial information – directly from the source.
As the BBC reported, the scammers called Ritz restaurant reservation holders with the "exact" details of their reservations, while also asking for confirmation of their payment card details.
The scammers, who pretended to be Ritz employees, used “call ID spoofing” to make it appear as if they were from the hotel.
One guest said a scammer called him the day before he was due to visit the Ritz for afternoon tea. After asking to “confirm” his details, the scammer said his card had been declined and then asked for a second payment card.
The fraudster then attempted to make a series of transactions exceeding £1000 from Argos.
However, the visitors’ bank detected the strange payments. Perhaps knowing it was likely to happen, the scammer called again – but this time, pretending to be from their bank to obtain the three-digit security from the back of the payment card, which would allow future transactions to be made.
Another woman told the BBC that the same tactic, but she dropped the call after the scammer on the other end of the line was unable to provide details about the hotel – things she should have known if she were a genuine hotel employee.
It is not known how widespread this scam or how many people have been targeted. The Ritz hotel has sent an email to customers, stressing that staff will not call them after booking.
“We immediately launched an investigation to identify the cause of the breach, which is ongoing, to learn what happened and how, and to be able to prevent something like this from happening again,” the hotel chain says.
