Have you ever fallen for a scammer, either over the phone or online? Sometimes it can be hard to know the difference right away, but there are usually red flags if you’re paying attention.

In this story, one hotel front desk worker gets an odd phone call, and she thinks it might have been a scammer. However, she’s not 100% sure.

Keep reading for the conversation that happened during the call, and see if you think it was legit or not.

I’m not sure if this was a legit 3rd party call

Phone rings.

Thick accent.

“Hello this is x from Pdia I’m calling on behalf of our mutual guest”

“I will stop you right there, you will have to make your request in a written form only through the Pdia port”

The caller had a question.

“What’s the Pdia portal?”

“Well if you’re really Pdia, that’s YOUR portal. So make your request there. That will be it for me. Goodbye.”

I hang up.

He calls back.

They didn’t get cut off.

“Yes hi we got cut up”

“So like I said we will only be taking requests under a written form.”

“Is there a supervisor I can talk to?”

“No.”

The caller had another question.

“Can I take your name?”

“No. We will only be dealing with written requests. Goodbye”.

Half an hour later, I’m still waiting for a written communication to come in.

Nothing.

So. How do you deal with those calls? How do you make the difference between scam calls and real 3rd parties?

It can sometimes be hard to know the difference between a scammer and a legit call, but considering the caller didn’t seem to know anything about the portal for the company they claimed they were calling from, it may not have been legit.

Let’s see what Reddit suggests.

This person’s hotel has a similar policy.

Another person thinks the call was legit.

Another hotel worker shares how it works at their hotel.

Another person shares their hotel’s policy.

I Googled “Pedia” to try to figure out what it is, and the suggestion was Expedia. So I guess hotels don’t like Expedia.

Everyone seems to think the call was legit.

It’s better to be safe than sorry if you’re not sure if it’s a scam.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.