LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. (NEWS10) — The Warren County Sheriff’s Office sent out an alert on Thursday warning business owners in the Lake George area to be wary of a new credit card scam. Scammers have been targeting hotels in and around the village and town of Lake George.

Several hotels have reported receiving scam calls where rooms are reserved using stolen credit card information, from cards that have not yet been reported stolen. The callers then cancel those reservations and have the refunds wired to a different credit card, effectively stealing the refunded money from the owners of the stolen cards.

Hotel and business owners are especially advised to keep a careful eye out for common requests and phrases noted between several scam calls and emails. Suspicious language includes:

• “I would like to reserve accommodation for 3 rooms and for 9 nights starting from 21st to 30th April.”
• “We are a family of 6 adults and 2 people per room.”
• “I will greatly appreciate it if you can send me the grand total for 3 rooms for those dates.”
• “Thank you for your prompt attention to the above and I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.”

Any business owner who has encountered this scam is asked to contact the county sheriff’s office, and can do so by phone at (518) 743-2515. In general, businesses are encouraged to ensure that refunds for canceled transactions or reservations always go back to the card originally used for the transaction or reservation.