The Ritz hotel targeted by fraudsters

The scammers called people who had made a reservation at its restaurant with details of their bookings, asking them to confirm their card details, according to BBC News​​. They then tried to spend thousands of pounds at Argos.

The five-star hotel in Piccadilly, which is home to the Michelin-starred The Ritz Restaurant, confirmed that the data breach happened earlier this month, but said that customer card details or payment information was not obtained from the hotel by the fraudsters.

“We can confirm that on 12th August 2020, we were aware of a potential data breach within our food and beverage reservation system, which may have compromised some of our clients’ personal data,” it said in a statement.

“This does not include any credit card details or payment information.”

The hotel said it has launched an investigation into the cause of the breech, which is currently ongoing.

“We immediately launched an investigation to identify the cause of the breach, which is ongoing, to find out what happened, how and to prevent this from happening again,” it said.

“We have contacted all of our clients whose data may have been compromised and alerted the ICO [Information Commissioner's Office] of the incident.”