Warnings about ‘scam’ emails from Booking.com asking travelers to provide bank card details or risk having their hotel booking canceled after customers lose ‘thousands of pounds’
- Are you the target of this Booking.com ‘scam’? Email lettice.bromovsky@mailonline.co.uk
Booking.com customers are being warned to ignore ‘scam’ emails asking them to confirm their hotel payment by providing their bank card details or risk having their booking cancelled.
Holidaymakers have revealed how they have received emails from noreply@booking.com threatening to cancel their upcoming stay unless payment is made within 12 hours.
Notifications of the unreliable email have also appeared in the company’s mobile phone app.
Are you the target of this Booking.com ‘scam’? Email lettice.bromovsky@mailonline.co.uk
One TikTok user described how she was scammed out of £2,000 after falling for it, while another said: ‘I guess I’m quite wary and quite cognizant of these things but this one had me fooled held’. Other vloggers have recently made similar warnings on social media.
Booking.com strongly denies that they were hacked and instead suggested that the messages were sent after breaches of its partner hotels’ email systems. The hotels deny this could have happened on their end.
TikToker nandinigotbored (pictured) was scammed out of £200
TikToker Lara Battigelli (pictured) was also almost scammed out of £2,000 by the travel website
TikTok user Nandini said: ‘This hotel has sent you a message, click here and a copy of it will be in your email too.
‘I clicked on it and the actual Booking.com app opened. This screamed nothing out of the ordinary to me as normally if you have booked a room but not paid in advance they will ask you to enter the details of a card valid for check in and again it will be in the official booking .com app, so you shouldn’t find this strange.’
It also stated that she would not be charged for this transaction, but she soon afterwards realized that she had been charged £200.
Another TikToker, Lara Battigelli, was also almost scammed out of £2,000 by the fraudsters.
She said: ‘I almost got scammed by Booking.com and it was a very sophisticated scam that came through the app and I almost fell for it. I work in technology, I’m used to seeing how they come in, but this came as a message via the hotel I booked for my honeymoon.’
Lara said she found the 12 o’clock deadline a bit strange, and as a result she delayed confirming a payment. She talked about how she later saw other users on TikTok talking about the scam.
Several customers have tagged the holiday booking website at X to express their frustration.
Serena Chang wrote: ‘Really frustrating experience with Booking.com – scammer infiltrated their site and sent messages through their site.
‘Lost a lot of money. Booking.com doesn’t seem to be able to help, they just paste the answers that don’t respond to my question.
Luckily, she saw the scam on TikTok before confirming it with her card details
Another user said: ‘I was hit by the same scam yesterday for €219. The fraudsters have infiltrated Bookings.com’s messaging system, so it looks like the message came from them. They’ve known for at least 3 days. Just look at their stock prices!’
Rod Strother said: “I recently got scammed through the platform. I received a message that the hotel needed an update to my credit card information, which I provided only to have the bank say they suspected a scam. Booking.com refuses to take responsibility for what appears to be a data breach.”
A Booking.com spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘Ensuring our platform is secure and reliable for our partners and customers is a top priority for us.
‘Some of our accommodation partners have unfortunately become targets of very persuasive and sophisticated phishing tactics, encouraging them to click on links or download attachments outside of our system, which can load malware onto their machines and in some cases lead to unauthorized access to their systems. Booking.com account.
‘While this is not a breach of Booking.com’s backend systems, and is likely a coordinated attempt by attackers to commit fraud against both guests and accommodation partners by targeting them with phishing emails, we are well aware of the implications of such scams by malicious third parties. parties from our company, our accommodation partners and unfortunately also from our customers, who can become victims of professional scammers.’