Australians have reported losing greater than $220,000 in Booking.com scams in only one 12 months amid an enormous spike in cases.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch website received 363 reports of scams mentioning Booking.com last 12 months, a whopping 585 percent increase on the 12 months prior.
In 2022, a significantly lesser 53 reports were made.
The info comes on the back of a Queenslander sharing her story with the ABC, who had about $16,300 spent on her cards after scammers stole her details.
The girl, Robyn, had been contacted by the scammers through Booking.com, pretending to be a hotel she had an upcoming booking at, needing to verify payment details.
She was eventually contacted by a legitimate representative of the hotel however it was too late.
“The hotel said that their system through Booking.com had been mainly hijacked,” she told ABC. “They may see me talking to people, however it wasn’t them.
“They said they couldn’t get into the system to inform me to stop talking to them.”
Fortunately, her bank later returned the funds that were spent on her cards.
Booking.com said it was aware of “quite a lot of” accommodation partners on the platform that had been sent phishing emails, “with the intent of taking on their local computer systems with malware.”
“In some cases this has led to unauthorized access of their Booking.com account, which enables these fraudsters to temporarily impersonate the accommodation and communicate with guests via email or messages,” an announcement provided to news.com.au said.
“It’s vital to focus on that Booking.com’s back-end systems and infrastructure haven’t been breached, and the variety of accommodations impacted are a small fraction of those on our platform.”
The corporate said it had put recent measures and alerts in place to update and protect its customers and accommodation partners.
“If a customer ever has any concerns a few payment message, we encourage them to first fastidiously check the payment policy details outlined on the property listing page and of their booking confirmation,” a spokesperson advised.
“Customers are also encouraged to report any suspicious messages to us via our customer support team, or by clicking on ‘report a difficulty’, which is included within the chat function. “Inside each individual booking we even have guidance for purchasers on learn how to avoid suspicious activity. As a rule, no legitimate transaction will ever require a customer to share sensitive information like bank card details via email, chat messages, text messages (including WhatsApp) or on the phone.”
The ACCC advises Booking.com users to do the next to guard themselves against these scams.
- Independently confirm any email that incorporates a link and/or attachment, that asks you to check in or to enter personal or financial information.
- Contact the organization on a phone number that you’ve got positioned yourself, never one provided in an email or text.
- Use the organizations app to securely access your account and confirm messages and implement two factor authentication for added security.
- Bear in mind that Booking.com customer support representatives won’t ask you to supply your account password or financial information equivalent to a bank card over the phone.
