Member News

It’s tax season, and right on cue a dramatic spike in reports of scams involving imposter IRS and U.S. Department of Treasury officials have been observed, reports Claire Rosenzweig, CAE, President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Serving Metro New York. Since Jan. 1, consumer reports of IRS and U.S. Treasury telephone scams to BBB Scam Tracker—an interactive tool that allows consumers to view and report scams in their local area—increased by 650 percent on a day-to-day basis, compared to December 2015. Scammers deliver an urgent demand to consumers when they call: consumers are told they owe back taxes, and are threatened with the prospect of being arrested or being charged with a felony unless they pay-up immediately. Both the U.S. Department of Treasury and IRS have posted warnings on their websites about phone scams by operators using their agencies names. The BBB offers these tips:

• Neither the U.S. Department of Treasury nor the IRS will contact consumers by phone to demand money, or threaten legal action. If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be from one of these agencies, demanding money or threatening legal action, do not engage in conversation with the caller - hang up the phone.
• If you know you owe taxes or you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS yourself at 800-829-1040 to get instructions on how to proceed.
• Never trust callers who use threats and hostility to bully their targets into doing what they want. This is a tactic many scammers use. If you feel threatened on a phone call with a solicitor, or someone claiming to represent a government agency, hang-up and contact BBB for advice. If the caller’s threats are extreme or frightening, contact your local police department to report the abusive call.

If you receive a similar call report it to www.bbb.org/scamtracker/us or contact BBB at 212-533-6200.

With room demand at airport locations having grown from an average of 55 million room nights in 2010 to 65 million in 2015, airport hotels are an increasingly important segment in the hotel industry, according to a Hilton blue paper on the Travel Trends: The Rise of the Airport Hotel. The information is based on an online survey, conducted by Hilton, which included 5,506 travelers ages 18+ in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and China (approximately 1,000 per country) designed to understand perceptions around airport hotels and gauge interest in the next-generation concepts of airport hotels. The survey found six amenities that are considered table stakes (amenities that people rate as so obviously expected that their existence has little impact on their guest experience, though their absence would have a negative impact) to Chinese respondents yet exciters to those from the U.S. In other words, the Chinese wouldn’t even notice if these amenities were there (they might not even categorize them as amenities), though they would notice their absence. The Americans, however, wouldn’t even expect them in the first place and, if they were there, they would make a big impact. These amenities include: drink or snack upon arrive; mobile app that allows you to order room service; in-room spa amenities; 4K television; direct to airport luggage transfer; and mobile app that allows you to control your room settings. Twenty-two additional amenities—including premium WiFi, soundproof guest rooms, child daycare and smart security—were labeled as satisfiers (amenities that are not expected but that, if present, increase the satisfaction and may be a deciding factor in a booking decision) in the U.S., while classified as table stakes in China.