brownie
07-02-2012, 01:52 PM
From USA Today (July 1, 2012):
A 30-year-old homeless man recently lived it up at a Walt Disney World-area resort, racking up a tab of about $3,000 on a previous guest's credit card before getting caught, reports local TV station WFTV Channel 9.
And it turns out, investigators believe he's done it before at other local luxury hotels.
WFTV broke the story - now spreading across the Internet - that a man identified as David Price was arrested Saturday at the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal Orlando Resort and charged with grand theft.
Disney investigators are now looking into incidents at Disney-owned hotels, the story says.
The man was jailed for "sneaking into a hotel room and claiming he was the room's previous guest, then using the credit card on file to rack up thousands of dollars in charges," the story says, citing court papers.
How did the scheme work?
The man found his way into a guest room after a guest checked out, the court papers also say. He then called the front desk "and said he was that person," and said he was staying longer, the story says, citing court papers.
At that point, the spending spree began.
Hotel management caught wind of the scam because the actual guest who'd checked out was an employee who'd left Florida after attending a conference, the article says.
WFTV says staffers entered the room and found items from the nearby Peabody Hotel. A call to the hotel revealed that they were aware of the scheme. And "it appears Price did the same thing at the Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cypress and Loews Portofino Bay at Universal, court papers say."
The strategy apparently worked as early as 2010. WFTV had requested police reports from the Orlando Police Department and found Price used it in 2010, too. That time, the story says, he spent nearly $9,000 at the Portofino Bay by using an Ohio man's credit card. WFTV quotes the victim:
"I don't know how he got in my room, how he got my debit card. But he got like the best wines, the best restaurants, room service. He bought clothes and the whole ball of wax," said Joseph Barak, who was visiting Orlando from Poland, Ohio.
I'm not sure why the title says Disney-area hotels since most of the hotels known to be involved are outside of Disney.
A 30-year-old homeless man recently lived it up at a Walt Disney World-area resort, racking up a tab of about $3,000 on a previous guest's credit card before getting caught, reports local TV station WFTV Channel 9.
And it turns out, investigators believe he's done it before at other local luxury hotels.
WFTV broke the story - now spreading across the Internet - that a man identified as David Price was arrested Saturday at the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal Orlando Resort and charged with grand theft.
Disney investigators are now looking into incidents at Disney-owned hotels, the story says.
The man was jailed for "sneaking into a hotel room and claiming he was the room's previous guest, then using the credit card on file to rack up thousands of dollars in charges," the story says, citing court papers.
How did the scheme work?
The man found his way into a guest room after a guest checked out, the court papers also say. He then called the front desk "and said he was that person," and said he was staying longer, the story says, citing court papers.
At that point, the spending spree began.
Hotel management caught wind of the scam because the actual guest who'd checked out was an employee who'd left Florida after attending a conference, the article says.
WFTV says staffers entered the room and found items from the nearby Peabody Hotel. A call to the hotel revealed that they were aware of the scheme. And "it appears Price did the same thing at the Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cypress and Loews Portofino Bay at Universal, court papers say."
The strategy apparently worked as early as 2010. WFTV had requested police reports from the Orlando Police Department and found Price used it in 2010, too. That time, the story says, he spent nearly $9,000 at the Portofino Bay by using an Ohio man's credit card. WFTV quotes the victim:
"I don't know how he got in my room, how he got my debit card. But he got like the best wines, the best restaurants, room service. He bought clothes and the whole ball of wax," said Joseph Barak, who was visiting Orlando from Poland, Ohio.
I'm not sure why the title says Disney-area hotels since most of the hotels known to be involved are outside of Disney.