09 Mar 2025 - AJ
This week’s scam is a scam I’ve encountered in the wild. It’s fascinating, it’s old, and it just pops up every so often.
I’ve visited San Francisco many times over the years and stayed at many hotels - from the cheap hostels of my youth to fancy, name-brand hotels. This particular one was an independent hotel that I think was in the Fisherman’s Wharf area. The reason I remember it is they had a sign at the check-in counter specifically mentioning this scam. I don’t remember the text exactly, but I believe that it was something to the effect of “we will not call you claiming that your card has been wiped from our system. If you get a call like this, hang up.”
I’ve never encountered this ever again, but judging from r/scams it comes up from time to time, and I even saw some variations that were debated by the community.