2,200 times without notice? T point illegal acquisition? 18:32 on January 22
A 51-year-old woman and her son were arrested for repeatedly canceling the hotel without permission. Police estimate that T-points had been illegally obtained by making 2,200 or more unauthorized cancellations nationwide. What is the trick?
Point reduction mechanism
In this case, it is believed that the mechanism to return "T points" as a benefit to users of the accommodation reservation site was abused.
Normally, when a hotel is booked on the hotel reservation site "Ikyu", the site gives back a few percent of the accommodation price to users with "T points".
According to the police, Mr. Kishida registered on the site with a pseudonym and false phone number, made a reservation, canceled the reservation without notice on the day, and did not pay the accommodation fee.
The hotel could not charge a cancellation fee because the pseudonym was used.
What if I cancel without notice?
On the other hand, the hotel pays a portion of the funding for “T points”, which is a privilege for reservations. In the case of unauthorized cancellation, it is necessary to contact the reservation site from the hotel to cancel the points, but in many cases it was forgotten and the points were given as it was.
According to police investigation, Kishida repeated more than 2200 unauthorized cancellations, of which about 400 were not canceled and points were canceled, resulting in illegal acquisition of about 1.9 million yen It is believed that
Ikkyu "Working on System Improvement"
“Ikkyu”, which operates the hotel reservation site, says, “We sincerely accept that the site has been used for crime. We will work on improving the system so that users and lodging facilities can use it with peace of mind. We want to raise awareness to prevent malicious unauthorized cancellation. "
Expert "Needs to strengthen identity verification"
According to Masakazu Otsu of Doshisha Women's University who is familiar with the accommodation business through the Internet, `` The operating company of the accommodation site has been moving in a direction that makes it easy to make a reservation registration to attract members, but this time the part where identity verification is not thoroughly confirmed is It is necessary to strengthen identity verification by registering credit card information etc. so that we can respond in the event of unauthorized cancellation. "
Regarding the point system, "In the face of intensifying competition on accommodation sites, many point systems have emerged to acquire users, but the system does not consider the busyness of accommodation facilities. In the future, it will be necessary to improve the system so that hotels at the site can be used easily. "