Booking.com Booking.Gone

Hotel Reservation Hijack

Earlier this year Booking.com suffered a data breach which resulted in scammers hijacking reservation information. This has impacted hospitality business large and small and customers. Fraudsters took customer data including reservation information. Meanwhile Booking.com continued to email hosts informing the hotels and guest houses of their responsibilities to stay secure and make sure they adhere to GDPR, this is where I would like to point out people in glass houses...

Booking.com is still refusing to declare how many of their customers have been compromised and in which regions. We do know that names, addresses, current and past booking information was compromised the holiday giant has remarked card details have not been taken.

How the Hijack works

You may be contacted by either the host (scammer) or Booking.com (scammer), text, email, phone call to advise you that your payment was unsuccessful and you need to pay to keep your booking. This scam is reliant on pressure, accuracy of booking information and speed for your convenience, they can take the payment just follow the link or provide your card details over the phone. The believable part of this scam is that they have all of your data, where, when, how long, the host information from your reservation, even the reservation number. Why would you think this was anything other than Bona fide?

As a host with several different site including Booking.com I can provide first hand information from the inside of how to manage this situation successfully.

• Politely ask the scammer you will call booking.com back shortly. Remove yourself from the situation. This reduces the pressure point.

• Contact the host direct. If your booking has been paid for you will have access to the hosts telephone number direct, if your payment has been declined Booking.com remove phone numbers between host and customer. Ring the accommodation provider direct and ask them to check if the booking is still valid and paid for. Hosts have access to all financial information impacting on their business, including if your payment has cleared. Some hosts take your payment direct and some hosts take your payment via Booking.com, this is a commission point and how business to business operates.

• Always search for your accommodation, find the website of your hotel/holiday let/guest house and confirm the contact details. This will take a minute or two. This will confirm the phone number supplied on Booking.com is accurate.

• Remember "Booking.com will never ask guests to share credit card details by email, over the phone, WhatsApp or text, or ask guests to make a bank transfer that is different from the payment policy details in their booking confirmation,"

• Double check your card information that they have on file. As a host a regular issue I see is a card which has gone out of date and a customer does not realise this has happened, resulting in a lost booking for both consumer and accommodation provider.

  Happy Holidaying keep your funds, yours.

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