I was scammed via booking.com

Sorry to hear that.
Sounds like it was the Hotel's fault since their credentials for Booking.com were leaked.
Since you paid by credit card will, you get refunded?
 
Thanks Jim

The best way to learn from anything like this is "What did I do wrong so I won't fall for it again? "

I got an email from the hotel telling me that my booking was suspicious. But as it had the correct dates and reservation number, I was not remotely suspicious. I just did not want to lose my booking.
So I followed the instructions.

Lesson 1: Don't be afraid to make a phone call. We get out of the habit of calling service providers and prefer to do everything online. If I had called the hotel, that would have been the end of it.

To verify it, they asked me to pay the amount and then they would refund it. That again was odd but I was not suspicious as it was from the hotel.
So I entered my card details and paid the amount.

Then I got a message saying due to a heavy load it might take a few minutes to process. This is not that odd as I have often made payments, verified them on AIB with my phone, and they say "Don't press the back button or reload..." .

Then I got a message saying "this has not gone through, try again..." So I had put in my details a second time when I thought "That is too many odd things happening..."

So I checked my AIB account and the first payment had gone through. So I didn't proceed with the second payment.

I rang the hotel and the guy didn't speak much English. I said I had got an email about a fake booking and he said "scam".

Lesson 2: If there is a series of odd things, no matter how genuine they are, stop and think.

I then froze my card online.
I called a German friend and she rang the hotel and was told that they were plagued with calls that day from people who had received the email and it was a scam. But my booking was not fake.

I googled it and found that this scam has happened before.

I rang AIB but they said that the payment had been authorised so they could not recall it.
 
Bizarre that booking.com maintain their systems were not compromised but yet they had your booking number. Did you email them your credit card details? Is it not possible to initiate a charge-back or are you goosed because you authorised?
 
It appears that the scammers were able to get into the hotel's account on booking.com. And send messages to anyone who had booked with the hotel.

So I am in correspondence with the hotel and booking.com about getting a refund. The hotel has asked me for proof of the payment I made which I sent them. They then told me to forward it to booking.com which I did. But Booking.com has not replied.

AIB said to contact them for a chargeback after 15 days if I can't resolve it with the supplier.
 
24601 said:
Did you email them your credit card details?
Click to expand...

No, I filled them out on what I thought was the booking.com payment page.
It was actually a payment company called World Remit



I tried to contact them to stop it being moved on but could not contact them. There was no email address. There was a phone number but it said that there was a 35 minute wait.
 
If I search for a hotel in, say, Galway on booking.com , I get inundated with emails from them afterwards. Have you booked yet? Great deals in Galway? Attractions in Galway!

I do not ever recall getting an email from them alerting me to potential scams.

I looked at their home page and saw nothing highlighted about scams.

It would be very easy to send an occasional email "Some ways scammers pose as booking.com to scam you"
 
Its a pity the Irish Independent didn't report the whole story.
I have a much better understanding of what happened now.
(I realise you would have given them the full story and they edited it to suit.)
 
we're at the stage now where we have to treat calls from anyone we're dealing with like calls from banks, and phone them back using the number of their website.

In this case it would seem that the hotel failed in securing their own systems and allowed their booking.com account to be compromised. You really shouldn't end up on the hook for that! Also agree that booking.com should be highlighting this. I book hotels with them every month and I've never once been told about possible scams. In fairness, the hotels usually contact me through the booking.com message facility, but not always, and sure it seems that could be dodgey too.
 
Sorry to hear that you fell victim to this. For what it is worth, my experience with Booking.com is not dissimilar, although I have not lost any money yet. The past 3 times I have used their service I have received dodgy emails and in-app messages with links to external websites. The URLs in these links have the veneer of legitimacy but I have never clicked on them. I have always reported them to Booking and their tech team is usually very responsive. That said, there is clearly an ongoing issue here but I am not too sure if the issue lies with the accommodation provider or me.
 
24601 said:
we're at the stage now where we have to treat calls from anyone we're dealing with like calls from banks, and phone them back using the number of their website.
Click to expand...
I think that this is a very important point. In the same way that most of us now treat any inbound SMS with suspicion if not derision, sadly we now need to treat all inbound calls the same way…… scammer unless proven otherwise
 
I have been inundated with New Year offers from hotels through Facebook. I am familiar with many hotels and hotel brands. Some of these hotels I have never heard of. I would always look to the Google search facility to see if these hotels are genuine or some made up scam.

However, I am shortly going to make an expensive reservation to book business flights with British Airways long haul. How do I know that the scammers have not succeeded in cloning the British Airways website?

I have emailed hotels in the past and because they do not have a reservation section on their website I am often referred to Booking.com. I suppose there is a situation where I could be scammed. Email the hotel, they refer me to Booking.com, I then make a booking through Booking.com. Then receive a false email from the person that I originally contacted telling me that there is a problem and asking me to book direct over the phone.
 
I have booked an apartment in Germany through booking .com last week. Every message I sent via booking .com automatically generated a response saying booking.com cannot guarantee that the message has been sent to the apartment owner. It sugessted I phone the owner direct.

I didn't phone, but received an email reply through booking .com from the owner.

It contained instructions to make the payment to the owners bank accoun and to fill in the attached tourist tax form. I did all this. The next day I received a phone call from Germany from the owner telling me he had received the payment and to send on the tourist tax details. I told him these were sent via booking.com. He checked but never got this from booking.com. I am satisfied that I was actually talking to the genuine owner. The identified phone number and email address all match up.

The service operated by booking.com is dreadful.
 
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Sorry to hear about that Brendan.

I rarely use Booking.com but did use it last summer for a hotel in Paris. I received a scam email from booking.com with all my booking details saying I needed to enter my card details due to anti-fraud safeguards. I thought it looked a bit suspicious so I decided to log into my booking.com profile to see if the same message was in my inbox there. And it was! After that I nearly completed the card transaction but luckily just stopped at the authentication stage as it felt off.

Given that the message was sitting in my booking.com profile inbox I am convinced booking.com is compromised but they won't admit it as their business will take a huge hit. Other stories online suggest the same.
 
It is a good thing to publicise that even people in the know can fall foul of these scams.
I almost always use booking.com and was aware of this problem. So when I received an email saying there was something wrong while I was travelling to the hotel, I didn't even read through, but just decided to sort things out at the hotel.
Very soon after the scam email, I got one from booking.com telling me the first had been a scam. I didn't reply to that one either. Just in case!
 
I always deal directly with Hotel in question by phone with no intermediary (old fashioned I know)

After reading this thread it reinforces my belief that it's best to keep doing so.

Unbelievable, it's like the wild west meets Dick Turpin with a laptop.
 
Sorry to hear that Brendan. As booking.com is so popular, it could happen to anyone.
Booking.com does not care that it's website is used by scammers, frequently taking the scammers word over customers

From Wikipedia

Booking.com - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Guests contacted by fraudsters, posing as hotel staff​

In 2023, the BBC's Watchdog discovered that guests had been contacted by fraudsters over the official Booking.com messaging system, spoof emails, and WhatsApp resulting in financial loss and leaked customer data. Guests complained that it was very difficult to contact Booking.com about this issue, citing poor customer service. The fraudsters direct guests to replicas of the Booking.com website containing the reservation data and personal details of the guest and ask them to make a payment, a temporary transfer of funds or card validation.

In November 2023, the BBC highlighted that the practice had become so lucrative that cyber criminals were offering up to $2,000 (£1,600) for login details of hotels.
 
Persia said:
I always deal directly with Hotel in question by phone with no intermediary (old fashioned I know)
Click to expand...
So do I but the problem is that you give your credit card details over the phone.....then you wonder how those details are stored?

A few years back I had a brand new unused credit card that I used to book a hotel in Bordeaux. I was staying in one of the chain hotels.
When I called to the hotel I was asked for my card to guarantee my stay against breakages etc. The guy behind the counter swiped my card in a device that I assumed was connected to their booking system. A few days later we were contacted by the Ulster bank advising us that our card was being used in the U.K. to make purchases online.

We never lost any money but when I contacted the Ulster Bank they had absolutely no information for me as to how our new card had been compromised. Was it the hotel? Don't know. Did somebody scan my card while I was standing in a queue somewhere. Don't know.
 
I've probably said this before, but unfortunately the way to operate these days is assume everything is a scam until proven otherwise - any text, call, email requesting any details from you is a scam until proven otherwise.

This particular one is probably pretty common as I already got similar scam attempts after booking a hotel - mine wasn't even directly with booking.com it was a different provider but the scam emails were pretending to be booking.com. I googled about the email, and quickly found it was a common scam.
 
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