bubu-SNA

It appears the clerk who processed my checkout at the HR in Newport Beach in February helped themselves to the card # and pulled about $1800 from my e-gift card. I rather doubt the card was compromised through digital means....5 days after my checkout @ the HR Newport Beach the card gets hit for $385.00...then $1250 @ the HR in Scottsdale AZ...and then 2 small charges to pull the remaining balance off a week later in Kansas City & Houston. The gift card was purchased in December and the Newport Beach HR transaction was the first and only time it was used anywhere.

Hyatt Customer care is handling the situation in a very professional and expedient manner. I'm impressed. Upon reporting the fraud they promised to look into everything and I've been promised a new gift card within the next 2 business days. I was expecting weeks at best.

So...big thumbs down for the Hyatt Regency Newport Beach, big thumbs up for Hyatt corporate's handling of the situation.

FlyingDoctorwu

Not to stand up for the HR Newport Beach but Hyatt's been having a lot of trouble with gift card fraud....Check out this thread


FDW

spgplat21

I think this is much more likely a Hyatt problem than a HR Newport Beach problem. Plus if the agent wanted to commit fraud/theft they have access to credit card information, which can be used to buy a lot more than $2000 at a couple hotels.

cdancer20

I would not necessarily blame the hotel. That thread that the poster above gave is the right one for you to read. This is a consistent problem with Hyatt eGCs that they are getting compromised. These include eGCs directly from Hyatt and not just eGCs through third parties.

bubu-SNA

Yes, it is possible the breach was on Hyatt's end vs the Hotel however, I do not believe it is likely.

The method of inputing the gift card by the hotel is rife with potential for fraud. It's manually typed in by the agent who has the opportunity to do a CTRL + C and a CTRL + V into a notepad on the laptop. This is not possible with a swiped credit card. Stealing a gift card balance is super low hanging fruit for a theif...stealing credit card information is a bit more complicated as they still have to clone a card etc.

While I have no proof that it was the Hyatt Regency Newport Beach that's the source of the fraud, all circumstantial evidence points in that direction. Brand new gift card, first and only use was at the property, 5 days after check-out the card gets used in a neighboring state for a weekend stay.

Bottom line is that Hyatt needs to develop a secure method for using gift cards. Having the ability to apply the gift card as a method of payment during e-checkout seems logical.

pWei

Check the other thread. People who had purchased eGCs directly from Hyatt still had theirs compromised without any activity.

cdancer20

I would definitely say given that this has been happening over and over again recently, the chance of it being a Hyatt issue is great. You're accusing a person that works for Hyatt of stealing. The risk of doing that is great as Hyatt can easily track when/where the gift card was used. I'm not saying that it's not possible, as there are many thieves in the world that don't consider the consequences. I'm just saying that your incident is not isolated so more likely to be the same as others.

Kalboz

Any compensation for this?

cdancer20

I don't know if anyone has gotten compensated for this. Hyatt just replaces the funds and moves on.

mhdena

Was this one code with $1800 or more on it?

I have several physical Hyatt cards $50, $100, and $200 from Amazon and SVM eBay. No problems.

I'll stick to getting and using these.

azepine00

i and many others had problems with physical GCs. YMMV.

I am not even sure whether it's a fraud or some glitch - leaning towards the latter given that hyatt seems to be pretty casual about it...