Kimpton Hotels Investigating Possible Credit Card Breach

You might not be familiar with the Kimpton chain of boutique hotels, but we can guarantee that a lot of business travelers (and the folks in their companies’ accounting departments) are now keeping an eye out for odd activity on their credit cards after news of a possible payment card data breach affecting multiple Kimpton locations.

This is according to the ever-reliable KrebsOnSecurity, which today confirmed with Kimpton that the San Francisco-based hotel chain is looking into reports linking unauthorized card transactions to recent Kimpton guests.

The hotel says that it has “launched an investigation and engaged a leading security firm to provide us with support.”

Until something more conclusive is found, Kimpton is recommending that anyone who used a payment card at one of its hotels should monitor their accounts for unauthorized transactions.

“If there are unauthorized charges, individuals should immediately notify their bank,” writes Kimpton. “Payment card network rules generally state that cardholders are not responsible for such charges.”

However, it’s important to remember that you must tell your bank or credit card company about the bad transaction within a reasonable period of time in order to have the charges canceled.

According to Krebs, bogus card transactions have been linked to cards that had previously been used at any one of nearly two dozen Kimpton locations. The hotel chain currently operates 64 hotels in 33 cities, according to its website. The specific locations tied to the possible breach have not yet been disclosed.

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