The Powell Hotel

Identity theft ring at Hotel---- Don't stay here--

I have stayed at this hotel several times. Never had any problems until my last visit during August 2010. I am of the opinion that there is an identity theft ring run by some of the employees of the hotel. It happened to me during my stay. I have contacted the Powell to get this matter resolved. I was promised by the hotel manager that I would be provided a copy of the key log enteries for my room during my stay. After they contacted me a few days later, they informed me that no one else except for myself entered the room and they refused to provide the key log enteries as proof citing policy. The Hotel Manager Mr. Pehalba indicated that they still did not see this as their problem and that he would have the general manager, Mr. Henry Flynn contact me. It has not been two weeks, and no phone calls. Hence, the review.

I will no longer stay at this hotel and can not in good conscience recommend it when in my opinion, it places no value on security.

Below is the letter emailed to the Hotel Manager Mr. Penalba.

As we discussed per our phone conversation, this email will point out what has occurred regarding the theft of financial information from our room.

Sometime between 8/8/10 and 8/10/10 the financial information off of my wife's ATM/Mastercard was scanned. The card was not physically taken, nor was the magnetic strip removed. Again, the information was scanned.

My wife's purse was in our room. I believe the room was 601. It was in the room during our entire stay and had never left the room. The purse was placed inside of a suitcase which was placed in the closet. The purse, her walle tand ATM card never left the room during our stay. Further, this was the first time that my wife had ever brought her ATM card to San Francisco.

During our stay in San Francisco, we only used my private credit card or paid cash. My private credit card is not connected with our bank that issued our ATM card.

During our stay at the hotel, we did not find it necessary to have our beds made. The maid knocked on the door and we spoke to her in the hallway. We informed her that we did not need her to come in to make the room. She asked if we needed any towels, we informed her we did not at this time, but if we did we would let her know. Each day we placed the do not disturb sign on the door. Each day the beds were not made up. Nothing appeared to have been altered in the room. We checked on on 8/10 and went home.

We began to receive unusual charges to our checking account beginning on 8/30/10. There was a charge for the Raddison Hotel on the Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco for a charge of 1320.00. We have never stayed at this hotel. We were not in San Francisco during this time either. We called our bank and disputed the charges. Those were removed, but other charges from the Raddison replaced them. There was a charge for $1600.00 on 9/3/10, and another for $338.73 on the same day. Again we disputed these with the bank.

On 9/4/10 we called the Raddison and spoke with the hotel manager named Lisa. We explained to her that we have never stayed at her hotel and that we have been getting charged. She indicated that she would investigate this and have someone contact us.

On 9/5/10 we were contacted by a person named Matt from the Raddisson. Once we provided my wife's ATM card number he was able to assist us further. He indicated that the electronic information from her card was placed onto the card of a person named Marcus Shyu who checked in with them on 8/27/10 and checked out on 9/1/10. He did provide identification and it matched the card that he provided.

During this time period, we also had other charges against our account. They are as follows:

8/27/10 Valero $30.00
8/27/10 Subway $18.85
8/30/10 Casa Hookah and Pizza $80.00
8/30/10 Subway $18.19
8/30/10 Subway $3.92
8/30/10 King Ling $55.70

All the fraudulent charges to our account are from San Francisco.

Thus far, a total of $2145.00 was taken from our checking account. $600.00 was taken out of our savings account to cover the returned check fees when the fraudulent charges were charged to our account.

I understand in our conversation yesterday that the key card access indicated that no one else entered the room. I suspect that those records have been altered. I have been attempting to have this matter resolved for some time now before speaking with you, and I was specifically speaking with Johnny about the key access issues. I believe that the records have been tampered with.

Our proof that my wife's card was not used in San Francisco during our stay is by our bank statement. There is no shown with regard to my wife's card during the time period of our stay.

This appears to be a very sophisticated manner of financial theft. I think that normally it would be difficult for a person to know where their financial information was taken if they were in the city and they used their card someplace else. It would make it difficult to pinpoint where financial information was stolen. However, in this case there is an exception. The card was not used anywhere else. It never left the room. Someone came into the room, got our luggage, got into my wife's purse and scanned her ATM card.

Due to the apparent sophistication of this fraudulent behavior, I encourage your hotel to deal with this situation immediately.

Sincerely,