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Disney guests targeted in credit card scam

Updated:

Disney visitors are being targeted in a credit card scam.

Detectives said the credit card scam could be the work of just one man who contacted people staying in Disney hotels and offered them deals that sounded too good to be true.

"He said something like, 'Your dream has come true,'" victim Linda Clark said.

Clark was staying at Disney's Pop Century resort when she got a call from a man posing as a Disney employee.

"I had been chosen to receive tickets to the Hoop Dee Doo revue for $20 each," Clark said. "And I thought, 'Gee, that's a wonderful thing.' And they said that I would need a credit card number to hold the tickets."

There were no tickets waiting for Clark, but she later discovered her credit card had been used to buy $1,500 in Disney tickets.

"I couldn't believe that I had fallen for that," Clark said.

Clark is one of nine Disney hotel visitors taken by the scam.

Their credit cards were hit up for more than $11,000 in fraudulent charges.

Most of the victims were targeted between October and January, and were staying at Disney's Polynesian resort.

"White collar crime, identity theft, credit card fraud, is apparently easy to do and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to pull these crimes off," Jim Solomons of the Orange County Sheriff's Office said.

Investigators are strongly considering the theft was the work of a Disney employee.

A company spokeswoman said, "We have placed information in resort rooms to remind guests to protect their credit card information while traveling and to inform them that cast members will never contact them by phone while they are visiting us to request their credit card information."

The story has a somewhat happy ending.

In each case, Disney helped the nine victims negotiate with their credit card companies to re-credit the more than $11,000 back to their accounts.

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