[CQ-Contest] Crowne Plaza Credit Card transaction

[Alex Malyava]

Yes.
AUTH happens in realtime and SETTLEMENT goes in a batch overnight

On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 19:21 <w5ov at w5ov.com> wrote:

> It's not a "fictitious" charge - it's actually called an "Authorize Only"
> or "AUTH" transaction (as I recall from my time at Citibank) to verify
> that the card is valid, and it can take a charge of up to a certain
> amount.  All hotels do this to make sure that they will get paid at the
> end of your stay.  Many retailers do this now too.  Authorize your card,
> then later charge for the actual amount when they ship your order.
>
> 73,
>
> Bob W5OV
>
>
> On Fri, May 26, 2017 11:53 am, ac0w at charter.net wrote:
> > Apparently you don't travel a lot. A lot of hotels will do a
> > fictitious charge to the credit card to confirm the credit card is good.
> At
> > some point during your stay a cancellation of the charge will be issued,
> > which you will never see. None of these charges show up on your monthly
> > statement. Most times this comes through under some other name and not
> the
> > name of the Hotel, such as the name of the hotel management group or in
> > this case the name of the chain. Crowne Plaza is part of the IHG chain of
> > hotels. The charge is typically for some value greater than one night
> > stay. For some reason the way the transaction is run it typical shows as
> > card not present despite them swiping the card at check-in. My practice
> > when I get notified of the charge such as this after checking into the
> > hotel is to check the name to make sure it makes sense for the hotel I
> > check into. Many times the name of the management group is in the lobby
> > somewhere. But a quick search on the web quickly gives me the answer I
> > need. BillAC0W
> >
> >
> > Message: 5
> > Date: Fri, 26 May 2017 06:02:12 -0400
> > From: jpescatore at aol.com
> > To: CQ-Contest at CONTESTING.COM
> > Subject: [CQ-Contest] Dayton Crown Plaza Credit Card flaw
> > Message-ID:
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> >
> >
> > Here's what happened - it happened to me and I work in Internet
> > security:
> >
> >
> > The Intercontinental Hotel Group (parent of Holiday Inn, Crowne
> > Plaza, etc) was hacked back in February and continuing through April.
> > Over 1,100 of its hotels were impacted. If you are interested, details
> > here:
> >
> http://www.computerworld.com/article/3190175/security/1-175-hotels-listed-
> > in-payment-card-breach-of-holiday-inn-parent-company.html />
> >
> >
> > I checked in to the Crowne Plaza on Friday afternoon. Later that day
> > I got a potential fraud alert from Mastercard that a "card not
> > present" charge of $377 was made to my card by something called IHG. I
> > checked online, my charges that day for gas and for the hotel I stayed on
> > on Thursday night were there and legit - and there was an IHG charge of
> > $377.
> >
> >
> > When I checked in, they physically swiped my card so it should *not*
> > have shown up as card not present, and I didn't immediately connect IHG
> to
> > Crowne Plaza. I called Mastercard, they connected me to the
> > fraud folks and I asked "Do you show more information about IHG?" they
> said
> > no. So, I said that must be a fraudulent charge and they cancelled that
> > card and are sending me a new one.
> >
> > I went down to the desk to tell them I would switch the charges to
> > another card and they said "Yes, we are having a lot of that because of
> the
> > hack." Bells went off in my head, but too late to stop the card from
> being
> > cancelled. The clerk said "let me check the list of disputed charges,
> > because the system will shut your room card access off." I'd come down
> > quickly enough, wasn't on that list but it was several pages long.
> >
> > Because of the hack and exposure, IHG apparently was centrally
> > processing card swipes until they could validate that all impacted hotels
> > had cleaned up there local systems. So, the charge showed up as "card not
> > present" - I have no idea why it showed up when I checked in, as on
> > business travel it usually shows up on checkout.
> >
> > When I was checking in, two hams sharing a room came down and said
> > their room cards didn't work. They might have had the disputed charge
> thing
> > cancel happen to them, don't know.
> >
> > Advice: no reason to worry about fraud to your card from your Dayton
> > stay, but if you stayed in any of the 1,100 hotels between February and
> > April and haven't been contacted, good idea to at least check your
> > credit records if not change that card number.
> >
> > 73 John K3TN
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
>
>
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