They make their own season passes. They white out dates, cut wickets, sell promo tickets for cash. They get free, 6-and-under tickets for their teenagers. Pose as ski instructors on Craigslist.

As scammers become ever more bold, ski resorts are moving aggressively to cut down on fraud. “Two years ago, when we went to radio frequency chips in our season passes, the talk online and in chat rooms was that we would no longer be able to do as good a job stopping fraud,” says Chris Jarnot, senior VP and COO at Vail.

Note to scammers: Just the opposite is true. Passes containing the chips can be scanned even buried deep inside a pocket—apparently the reason chat room visitors thought fraud would be easier. But the scans bring up bigger, sharper photos, as well as personal information about the passholder, such as name, address, age, and birth date.

“It’s a revolutionary change,” Jarnot says. “Our staff no longer has to make a split-second decision about confronting a guest. Now, as the guest goes by, and we don’t think it’s them, the attendant can say, ‘Hey’, and the name on the pass. If they don’t react, it’s probably not them, and we can ask for other information, such as their age and birth date. It allows staff to more comfortably confront guests who might be abusers.”

Aspen, which also went to radio frequency chips and upped the fine to $500 for people caught using a pass other than their own, has also seen fraud greatly diminished. “We made very public what we were doing,” says Jeff Hanle, PR manager. “We could see pictures, birth dates, addresses. Everyone was watching. It’s cut down a great deal on fraud.”


Law and order
Season pass fraud, including make-your-own passes, letting friends use yours, “forgetting” or “losing” yours and selling or giving away the replacement, etc. remains the most common scam.

After seeing a big bump in pass sales two years ago, Liberty Mountain, Pa., stepped up its staff training to catch potential fraud. The training paid off last winter when a liftie pulled aside a guest whose pass did not scan properly. “The pass looked perfectly legit,” says Anne Weimer, Liberty marketing manager. “But the man had created the pass that morning in the parking lot off a friend’s pass. He had a computer, scanner, card maker, even a laminator in his car. He was testing it out. We think he wanted to create a lot more.”

Weimer says that the lift attendant’s vigilance stopped a potentially huge scam. “The attendant almost let the kid go through,” Weimer says. “He didn’t want to inconvenience him.” Liberty called the police, who discovered the scammer was in the country illegally. He was jailed and deported.

“It was fascinating that they would go through that effort,” Weimer says. “They were able to scan the buddy’s pass perfectly, place the kid’s picture in place, laminate it.”

When it comes to other potential scammers, Weimer says supervisors escort the person to the administration office. Confronting potential scammers takes diplomacy, she notes. “There are plenty of legitimately lost lift tickets. You have to remember they are innocent until proven guilty.”

The parking lot can be a beehive of fraudulent activity, say ski resorts. Craig Baldwin, base operations manager at Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort (LVSSR), which is still using a sticker/wicket day ticket, says the most common scam is the “classic cut wicket for resale in the parking lot.” As at Liberty, he adds, “We have seen guests actually print out a copy of the day code section and then use this for access. We even had a guy with a printer in his car this year.”

Baldwin says LVSSR turns over scammers to police who check for outstanding warrants. “If they can’t pay the fine, we confiscate their equipment,” he says.

Before Whiteface, N.Y., went to scanning, marketing manager Bridget Hinman caught a guest with a whited-out date on his ticket. “He wrote in the date with a marker,” she says. “It looked nearly perfect.” Now, she says the biggest scam is people taking a couple of runs and selling their tickets in the parking lot.

At Crystal Mountain, Mich., Brian Lawson, PR manager, says the biggest scam is the classic, “I lost (forgot) my pass,” and then giving/selling the replacement in the parking lot. “We’ve upped the replacement ticket price from $5 to $25, and we pull a person’s pass for two weeks if we catch them giving or selling the replacement ticket,” Lawson says. “And we double charge the recipient.”

Ascutney, Vt., which gives out free tickets to children ages 6 and under, caught a man this winter giving a ticket to his teenage son. “Now, when we give a 6-and-under ticket, the child has to be present,” says Trisha Kurtzhalz, marketing director.


Coupons galore
Coupons and promo tickets are another ripe area for fraud.

Like many ski resorts, Shawnee Peak, Me., sells blocks of discounted tickets to corporations or other groups, and gives tickets to radio stations. “Sometimes, however, people receiving the free or discounted tickets sell them on eBay or in the parking lot, “says Melissa Rock, Shawnee Peak marketing director.

“We can’t do much about it,” Rock says. “The tickets are numbered, and if we catch them selling the tickets in the parking lot, we go to the radio station and let them know that is not the proper use of the tickets. It’s a difficult situation for us.”

Last winter, Mt. Holly, Mich., partnered with a gas station to give 2-for-1 ticket coupons to customers who bought 10 gallons of gas. At one station, the cashier saved the receipts for the coupons of customers paying in cash and sold them for $5.

Mt. Holly might never have caught the fraud if not for an alert bartender who heard a customer bragging about the scam. “We never caught the person,” says Mark Tibbetts, marketing manager. “But we tracked a large number of coupons coming from one location.” Mt. Holly reported the incident to its partner, who suspended the promo at that location.

“We did not suspend the program,” Tibbetts says. “We relied on our partner to assure us they would close the loophole. The ill will we would have garnered from people who got the coupons legitimately would have been disastrous.”


Internet Marketing
Online scams are another huge headache for ski resorts. Discount tickets and coupons are often sold on eBay. Other sites, like Craigslist, advertise discounted “underground” services such as guides and ski instructors.

“We’ve seen a big increase in people advertising and providing ski school services illegally,” says Jarnot. “Unfortunately, a lot of times it’s former employees, even current employees.”

Catching the imposters can be difficult. “Once they are on site, they are very difficult to catch unless you actually see them transferring cash,” Jarnot says. “You have to catch them when they advertise for the service.” Vail aggressively monitors Craigslist and other Internet sites, works with local law enforcement, and sets up stings to catch imposters. If caught, they are banned for life from all Vail resorts.

Of course, not all ads on Craigslist are bogus. Winter Park, Colo., thought it had a case of ski school fraud on its hands, but it turned out to be a legitimate Winter Park ski instructor simply using Craigslist to ask guests to request him.


Funny Money
Not surprisingly, with more people using credit cards, counterfeit money was mentioned as a problem only once. “This past season we were nailed for a couple of $20s,” says Tibbetts. “We had to step up testing to include all bills, not just the typical larger $50 and $100 bills.” It’s easy enough to swipe a pen over a suspect bill to determine its authenticity, “but when you have to start doing smaller denominations it’s quite an extra step,” Tibbetts says.

He notes that finding the proper authority to deal with fake money is also time consuming. “We spent a good week trying to figure out who to call,” he says. “Nobody seemed to know. The state police, FBI, nobody knew.” Turns out, it’s the Secret Service.