HOTEL FRAUD AND EMPLOYEE ABUSE

COMMON FRAUD AT HOTEL FRONT DESKS

Cash skimming is one of the most common types of fraud in the hospitality industry. Front desk associates often accept cash payments for market sweet shop sales, but fail to ring them up and keep the cash.

Cash paying guests, whereby a key is issued without recording into the hotel PMS system or converting to a complimentary room is a common occurrence at the hotel front desk.

Credit card fraud is more sophisticated requiring system manager level access, to push credits out directly to their own personal debit cards, while daily totals look to be tied out and properly balanced, and often go unnoticed. Issues with proper system access and verifying credit card credits contribute to these kind of frauds.

Other common items that can be easily converted to cash or credit card credits are:

Unauthorized room adjustments with easy conversion to cash paid outs and/or credit card credits.

No Show reservations converted to cash.

Prepaid Advance Deposits that are easily converted to cash or credit card credits

All of these can be prevented with proper standard operating procedures and strong internal controls.

This is where internal audits are of significant importance.

Internal Audits play a key role in minimizing the potential occurrence of fraud.

Our auditors have considerable experience in understanding potential weaknesses in hotel operations, and instituting internal control procedures to minimize the occurrence of potential fraud.

Please contact us today to schedule your internal audit.