Customers lose 'thousands of pounds' after receiving emails requesting bank card details. Photo / 123rf
Customers lose 'thousands of pounds' after receiving emails requesting bank card details. Photo / 123rf
Booking.com customers have been issued a serious warning to ignore ‘scam’ emails which request their bank card details to confirm their hotel payment or risk having their bookings cancelled.
Holidaymakers are alerting people of the emails they have received from noreply@booking.com that threaten to cancel their future reservations unless a payment is made within 12 hours, reports Daily Mail.
This dodgy email scam has also popped up in the company’s app, as well as on mobile phones.
One person on TikTok shared the story of how she was allegedly scammed out of £2,000 ($4,168) after falling for the fraudulent email, while another said: “I think I am quite wary and I am quite on the ball with these things, but this one had me fooled”.
Other users on the social media platform have made similar videos warning people of the scam.
Booking.com has strongly denied involvement, saying that they have not been hacked, but suggested the messages were sent after breaches in the email systems of its partner hotels. The hotels deny that this is the case.
TikToker Nandini said: “This hotel has messaged you click here and there will be a copy of it in your email as well.
“I clicked on it and it opened up the actual Booking.com app. This didn’t scream anything unusual to me as normally if you have booked a room but haven’t paid up front they will ask you to put in the details of a card that is valid for check-in and again it is in the official booking.com app, so there is no need to think this is odd.”
She claimed the message also told her she would not be charged for the transaction, however she soon realised that she had been £200 ($417) was taken out of her bank account.
Another TikTok user, Lara Battigelli, claims she nearly got scammed out of £2,000 ($4,168) by the swindlers.
She said: “I almost got scammed by Booking.com and it was a really sophisticated scam that came in through the app and I almost fell for it. I work in tech, I am used to seeing how they come in but this one came in as a message through the hotel I had booked for my Honeymoon.”
Booking.com have strongly denied involvement, saying that they have not been hacked, but suggested the messages were sent after breaches in the email systems of its partner hotels. Photo / 123rf
Battigelli added that she thought the 12 hour window was a bit strange, and as a result, decided not to go ahead with any payments. Later on, she saw other users on TikTok talking about the con.
A spokesperson for Booking.com told MailOnline: “Ensuring that our platform is safe and trustworthy for our partners and customers is a top priority for us.
“Some of our accommodation partners have unfortunately been targeted by very convincing and sophisticated phishing tactics, encouraging them to click on links or download attachments outside of our system that enable malware to load on their machines and in some cases, lead to unauthorised access to their Booking.com account.
“While this is not a breach of Booking.com’s backend systems, and likely a coordinated effort by attackers to commit fraud against both guests and accommodation partners by targeting them with phishing emails, we are acutely aware of the implications of such scams by malicious third parties to our business, our accommodation partners and unfortunately to our customers, who can fall victim to professional scammers.”
Customers of a South Island accommodation provider were the target of a credit card phishing scam on the international travel site as part of a worldwide swindle.
The owner of Riverstone Retreat Karamea said she understood all of her customers who had booked through Booking.com had been targeted by the scam.
