THEGUILD of Business Travel Agents wants hotels to tighten up credit-card security after a corporate-card number was used by a hotel employee to buy £3,500 worth of goods.
GBTA hotel working party chairman James Myles said the GBTAis also writing to credit-card companies to ask them to look at the scale of the problem, and urging agents only to give company-card numbers to reputable hotels.
“Agents often have to give US hotels their credit-card number to hold a room for a client after 6pm and that number can then be used fraudulently by an employee,” he said.
“The GBTA wants reassurance from hotels they are protecting agents’ card numbers.”
Myles, who is managing director of Protravel International, said he had no idea yet of the scale of this type of fraud, but believes it could run into thousands of pounds.
He said in another case, a hotel employee was arrested in possession of 50 credit-card numbers, including one of a GBTA member agency.