Employee uses the word ‘refund’ on documents to scam hotel out of $35,000

A hotel worker has been caught out in a carefully crEated scam, using one word to create $35,000 in fraudulent transactions.

A 41-year-old hotel employee has revealed the scam he curated to drain $35,000 from a popular hotel in New Zealand.

According to local media, the employee managed to create multiple fake refund payments to customers from a South Island resort.

He pleaded guilty to charges of accessing a computer system for dishonest purposes and theft by a person in a special relationship.

Claiming the money was for himself to pay off personal debt, the man was employed by popular resort chain Peppers to oversee banking and administration of the resort’s accounts using the hotel management software system.

The employee worked for Peppers in New Zealand's South Island.

According to court documents, as published by local media The Timaru Herald, the defendant “was able to use this system to process customer refunds to debit and credit cards.”

“The defendant created fake refund payments to customers, but was refunding the money to cards linked to his own bank accounts.

A hotel employee managed to scam $35,000 out of the hotel.

“The defendant used seven different debit card numbers that were linked to his bank accounts.

“He would have cards cancelled and reissued with new numbers to hide his offending from management.”

The employee made a total of 38 unauthorised payments to himself through fraudulent transactions from one of the resort’s accounts to himself.

The hotel, Peppers Bluewater Resort, is now seeking reparation of the $35,338.39.