Water bill scam targets hotels across North Texas
LEWISVILLE, Texas - Some North Texas cities are sending out a warning about a new scam targeting hotels.
The City of Lewisville says at least one hotel fell for the scam and lost a few thousand dollars.
Every month residents, businesses and hotels pay water bills.
Over the last week, someone or multiple people tried to take advantage of hotels in Lewisville.
Matt Martucci with the City of Lewisville says five hotels received calls requesting payment for an overdue water bill.
"He said the phone number came from a City of Lewisville phone number and the caller has sent him a Zelle pay cash app link," said Martucci.
Martucci says the Zelle Cash app link had a City of Lewisville logo on it.
The caller claimed if they didn't receive payment the water would be shut off.
"The request was $8,500," said Martucci.
Out of the five hotels that received the call, once ended up paying $3,500.
"He, being a new hotelier, came to the city and said ‘hey, I just want to make sure you got my payment' and our water billing people were questioning what payment he was talking about. He told us about it and that’s when we realized there was a scam going on," said Martucci.
We are not naming the hotel because a police report has not been filed at this time.
Martucci says hotels in Dallas and Irving also received calls requesting water bill payments.
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"Off the top of my head, I would think for a couple of reasons, they’re a large residential high water type usage. So a high bill would not seem out of the ordinary, or a high amount," he said.
Martucci wants people to recognize a couple red flags with this scam.
"The first thing we do not do is call you and tell you we’re cutting off your water, that would be the first red flag," he explained.
The second one is the City of Lewisville will not send a Cash app link for payments.
"If there is any dispute we have a water payment system over here, or you can come into city hall and talk to someone in the water billing department to resolve any issues you may have or to check your account," Martucci said.
The city doesn't know who is behind the scam, but so far it has only targeted hotels, not residents or other businesses.
Lewisville is waiting on an official report to be filed with police.
We don't know if the hotel will be able to get any of their money back.