Resy Cracks Down on AI Reservation Scammers
Resy, a reservation platform owned by American Express, temporarily suspended the account of JC Bahr-de Stefano, principal at Better Tomorrow Ventures, after he attempted to use an AI tool called Instinct to snag a table at one of New York's trendiest restaurants.
Bahr-de Stefano connected Instinct to his Resy account in hopes of getting a reservation at 4 Charles Prime Rib, but the AI agent spammed the platform with API requests, checking for open tables every 10 minutes throughout the day and every 0.4 seconds around the time that reservations usually dropped each morning.
Resy's terms of service prohibit unapproved third-party bots or agents from independently accessing or interacting with the platform, and Bahr-de Stefano's account was flagged as a result.
After reviewing the activity log, Resy reinstated Bahr-de Stefano's account, but warned him that if he continued to use Instinct in this manner, his account could be permanently closed, along with his AmEx credit card.