March 3, 2010
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Hotels Hospitable for Cybercrime, Pt.1
Why hotels?This is the continuation from the news article primer entitled: "Hotels Hospitable for Credit Card Cybercrime". To catch up, please reference that earlier article in order to better-understand this series. There, it was stated that hotels have hit the top of the list for cyber credit card data breach. Does this mean you shouldn't stay at hotels anymore? Or, if you do, that you should not use credit cards? Not at all. Truth is that, in spite of the fact that hotels are hit so often (Wyndham Resorts thrice just in the last 12 months), the damages have been minimal. The beauty of credit cards is their resilience. Monetary damages are limited to only $50 if reported timely. Nearly always, the consumer escapes any monetary loss at all.
Typically, the greatest damage to you, the credit card consumer, is the inconvenience of having to wait three days for your replacement to arrive. Not so with debit cards, however. If it's not bad enough that you can be hammered for $500 or more, it's right now. Never mind waiting for your statement to arrive, your damage is immediate. Last year I took a call (as an intermediary) where a family was vacationing out west, thousands of miles from their home. The clerk had mistakenly put the decimal in the wrong place when making the reservation (could happen to anyone) and inadvertently drained that family's bank account. Sure, it could all be straightened out within 5 days to two weeks. But meanwhile, this family is broke. Over a thousand miles from home and no money to live on, Nice vacation. This could not be the case with credit cards. They are much safer than debit cards.
In answer to those first two questions, the answer is "No." For many people, this is a good reason to frequent hotels even more often and, by all means, use your credit card first and foremost. What typically happens is, if the hotel is in some way responsible for your inconvenience (having to wait three days for a replacement), they have a secret policy to quell a spectacle when you raise a fuss. They'll usually forgive some of the charges for your stay there. Often-times they'll either forgive that $1,000 stay you owe them or, at least, greatly reduce it. Money back in your pocket.