| Review with staff the need for greater sensitivity and awareness to potential scams. Many of the favorites will be tried in the coming weeks.
The "make change" scam.
Remind any associate who handles money and makes change for guests or patrons to never interrupt the pay-out on an initial change request. The scam artist may offer a one hundred dollar bill and ask for five twenties. As the cashier begins to count out the five bills, the scammer will interrupt and say. "No, give me a fifty and five tens"; or some other configuration. The effective scam artist may get the cashier sufficiently confused through a series of change requests that they can walk away with as much as three hundred dollars in that single scenario. So, the rule is to politely say: "One moment please. I will complete your original request and we can then discuss further changes." The scammer will quickly depart as there will be no way for the scam to work.
Free Nights by a "Tag-along."
As strange as this may seem when a work crew is signing in for a week or other time frame for a local job in the community, an enterprising person may sign up with the crew. For that reason, always have a roster from the person in charge of the crew to confirm those eligible for "room and board."
Jury Duty Scam.
This scam you will want to share with staff. (Snopes confirmed). A phone caller will implement an identity theft by claiming to be a jury coordinator. When you protest you have not received a jury service notice, the individual will request your social security number and date of birth. so he/she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and your identity has just been stolen. Instead, hang up and check the local government phone listing for jury duty and confirm whether, or not, a jury notice had been issued.
Prevent Internal Scams.
Your author has reminded you in many bulletins over the years, of the importance of being alert for any deviation or variation in use and/or in purchase of materials, food and beverage service or in reservations. Food and beverage orders lend themselves to collusion. A "sweetheart deal" can be agreed upon without any formal indication in the records that the purchase is other than normal. To that end, it is recommended the establishment of a Purchase Review Committee that questions when there is, for example, an increase in spoilage (could be food "walking out the back door under the guise of spoilage"). If the spoilage is confirmed, there may be a problem of quality, delivery, handling upon receipt, storage or preparation.
To control quality and price, the Committee may establish a policy of putting purchases out for bid on a schedule it feels to be reasonable. This will prevent collusion and a favored source by purchasing or members of food and beverage management. The Committee, by the way, should include senior management, accounting, purchasing and food and beverage management, preferably, the senior person for each of these departments.
Prior bulletins have warned of a problem that may occur in reservations. A member of staff may decide to siphon off some of the direct reservations by adding a "dummy agency" eligible for commissions. In several scams of this nature, thousands of dollars have been paid in commission to the "dummy agency." Be alert to any shift in the percentage of direct versus commissioned reservations and investigate immediately when a shift occurs.
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Economic Downturn Equals Scams