Travel Securely Securely Travel
An unidentified woman has filed at $100 million lawsuit against the Hampton Inn in Albany, New York in the a Virginia court, as she continues to fend off extortion and blackmail attempts from an unidentified perpetrator.
The woman claims she was recorded by an unidentified hotel employee while taking a shower in the Hampton Inn. The woman, explains the entire episode in the ABC News piece (below).
The criminal posted the video of her in the shower on one adult website and then sent the victim the link and demanded she provide a video of her nude to and s/he would take down the posted video. When she didn’t the extorter posted the Hampton Inn video of her in the shower on other websites. And then demanded she pay a fee to have them removed. The criminal maintained their anonymity by demanding the payment be made via BitCoin to an anonymous account. When she again did not respond with payment, he then created a fake web email account, and sent emails to to her friends and family members implying that the victim was involved in a “racy modeling” activity, and included the link.
How her family members’ emails were obtained is not known.
ABC recommends that an RF detector be used to detect WiFi signals in the room and or cameras in the room. We’ve not tested any RF detectors, but do note a number of them available via Amazon and list them below.
Hampton Inn responds:
According to ABC News, Hampton Inn advises they take the safety of their guest seriously. The hotel recently was renovated and that during the renovation no video or listening devices were discovered. In fairness to Hampton Inn they are now investigating an event which occurred in 2015, and which the extorter began his/her extortion attempts some years later.
Readers will remember the incident which occurred on the Carnival Fantasy where the occupants found a video camera hidden in their stateroom. While the cruise line claimed that the device was not working (we are skeptical) one has to think that any video taken of the guests or prior occupants of the stateroom could be victimized in a similar manner as this woman. The woman’s attorney noted that they have identified at least one other victim of similar extortion.
Do you inspect your room?
Spy cams are readily available and inexpensive.
We did a quick search on Amazon and found one for less than $55, which has a magnetic back, and is ultra tiny with dimensions of 0.9*1.69*1.69in and weighed less than one ounce. One like this could easily be mounted in a cruise ship stateroom, hotel or AirBnb room.
Do you look for audio or video devices in your hotel, stateroom, AirBnb?
If you do, please share your experiences for others in the Facebook comments below.
For hoteliers:
What steps do you take to ensure your personnel are not surreptitiously placing devices in guest rooms?
Readers will remember the incident which occurred on the Carnival Fantasy where the occupants found a video camera hidden in their stateroom. While the cruise line claimed that the device was not working (we are skeptical) one has to think that any video taken of the guests or prior occupants of the stateroom could be victimized in a similar manner as this woman. The woman’s attorney noted that they have identified at least one other victim of similar extortion.
Do you look for audio or video devices in your hotel, stateroom, AirBnb? If you do, please share your experiences for others in the Facebook comments below.
For hoteliers, what steps do you take to ensure your personnel are not surreptitiously placing devices in guest rooms?
