Policy Abuse
Eating Away Profits: The Rise of Refund Scams and Its Impact on Restaurants
Restaurants and delivery services are facing a new challenge: refund scams coming from customers exploiting to get free food
April 3, 2024
Who booked all the golf tee times? If you are living in LA and struggling to secure any tee times on the public courses, I have a scandal for you!
Dave Finks, a golfer and now a robinhood to the LA golfing community, exposed some individuals using bots to monopolize premium tee times and resell them on the black market. Several prominent golf broker group chats use bots and other backchannel methods to book all the premium golf tee times.
The scam used by these brokers: using inside intel about the booking app used by LACITY, tee times are being booked before going public and resold on a messaging app called “KaKao” for prices ranging from 7$ per person to 75$ per person in some cases. This is ONTOP of the greens fee."
Dave Finks has emerged as a champion in the LA golf community, exposing groups that use bots to hoard and resell premium golf tee times. This revelation has shed light on the manipulative practices affecting public course accessibility and underscores a broader issue: bad actors will invariably exploit system loopholes, negatively affecting the larger customer experiences.
We see the same thing with exclusive releases, return abuse, restaurant reservations, and online arbitrage, with bad actors always looking for a loophole to exploit for their advantage.