29 Mar 2026 - AJ
First of all, I was supposed to post last week, but life happens.
This is a tiny site and I do it mostly because it forces me to learn about all kinds of scams. If someone else learns something from this site, then that’s great too! But it’s mostly for me.
Delaying a week actually works out just as well, because that’s Easter, and Easter is a big thing for my family.
In regards to this week’s post… it’s an absolutely fascinating, well-documented scam. I know I’ve seen versions that involve 24/7 businesses, but most of the places I visited talked about the hotel version.
Also, apparently there are a lot of hotels owned by one family called the Patels, along with independent hotels that are also owned by people surnamed Patel because Patel is an incredibly common surname in India.
In addition, a malicious and not financial variant is where someone convinces a manager of a fast food place that they need to strip search their employees or customers. That makes me shudder a lot. It’s a lot less common than the scam version, but unfortunately people can be very nasty.