SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — A new Illinois law could help address reservation fraud for restaurants.
The bipartisan plan will ban third party reservation companies from listing, advertising, promoting or selling reservations without written agreements with restaurants.
Any person who violates the ban could face a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for each violation. Customers will also have the ability to sue companies for listing fraudulent reservations online.
"They will post their reservations on a platform like OpenTable or Resy, which they have a third party agreement with," said Rep. Margaret Croke (D-Chicago). "Then, another service will go and take all of those reservations with a bot and sell those on a third party."
Sponsors said they have seen some reservations resold at prices as high as $700.
This law passed unanimously out of both chambers and will take effect January 1.
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