Two Conmen Books 28,000 for Bonus Points
Two Japanese men, Ken Muranaka and Kensaku Obara, have been caught running a bizarre reservation scam where they have been earning bonus points online by falsely booking hotel rooms. The two unemployed men had then been redeeming these reward points for goodies like CDs and games.
They started the scam in February when, using different IDs, they accessed travel options on Rakuten.co.jp, a well-known online shopping website.
Since most online reward programs in Japan didn’t ask for credit card or check-in confirmations, the 20 something conmen were able to earn points without actually paying for the hotel rooms.
Thus, in a matter of months, they booked over 28,000 rooms at 1,600 hotels all over Japan.
Such reservation brought in a large number of reward points for the duo.
According to Ohara. “We earned hundreds of thousands of yen worth of points every week with the fake reservations.”
Jobless and without a fixed address, the two men used these points to buy various luxuries like CDs, video games and books.
Towards the beginning of December, the two scammers were nabbed by the police.
Since they had never canceled any of their reservations, it was stated that their activities had been negatively affecting the workings of the various hotels.
By shinigami on 17-12-2009
