HOTELIERS, sick of being fleeced by roving confidence tricksters, are fighting back with a tough new scheme.

More than 40 hotels in the tourist haunts of Ryedale have signed up for Hotel Watch to tackle plausible fraudsters who move from hotel to hotel without paying their bills.

In one such case, last November, an "exceptionally friendly" conman duped two hotels out of more than £500.

The man had checked into The Crown Hotel at Helmsley and also The White Swan Hotel at Pickering, but left without paying. The proprietor of The Swan Hotel, Deirdre Buchanan, claims that if a watch system had been in operation at the time they would have caught the man when he visited her hotel.

Now, under the Hotel Watch scheme, hoteliers will be linked with each other and police to share clues about untrustworthy characters.

The link up should make it far harder for fraudsters to sting one hotelier after another as they move around the district.

Mrs Buchanan said she, like many hoteliers, had falled victim to fraudsters and thieves.

"I've had my car taken, television stolen from rooms along with other items. One time, someone stole stock from our cellar."

She said the hotel has strict safety measures such as taking car registration numbers and swiping credit cards, but added there were always those who managed to slip through the system.

"In the latest incident the guest give us a sob story, telling us how he had just been to confession. They usually come out with some sort of sad tale."

Community safety officer PC Terry Triffitt, of Malton Police, said leaving a hotel without paying was seen as an easy crime to commit.

He urged hotel owners to impose tighter security measures when checking customers first into the building.

More than 43 Ryedale hotels have signed up to join new Hotel Watch scheme for a fee of £10.

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