Victim Location 19104
Type of a scam Travel/Vacations
I work in an academic department at an Ivy League university. My colleague, Ryan, arranges travel for the Dean. Ryan received a call from Business Travel Management (BTM) saying that BTM had been contracted by another university (to which the Dean is traveling in November) to help arrange hotel bookings for conference participants. Ryan realized he hadn’t yet made the hotel booking, so he arranged for the hotel through BTM. He supplied BTM with the Dean’s credit card information and other personal info. A day or so later, the Dean realized his card was not working. Ryan followed up with the credit card company, who confirmed that BTM has been flagged previously for fraudulent behavior and that the Dean’s account/card was deactivated when the BTM charge was posted. Ryan followed up with the hotel that BTM had supposedly made a reservation at for the Dean. The hotel had no reservation and no record of any attempted reservation. Ryan followed up with the second university (to which the Dean is traveling in November) and learned that they have no relationship with BTM. It is our belief that BTM obtained the conference participant information and used that to target individuals coming to the conference. BTM has continued calling our office and asking us to re-confirm the nonexistent hotel reservation.