Booking.com Scam
Ok, we’ve all heard about the Booking.com scammer emails and fake websites and are being careful!
So when I received a Booking.com email and app message about a Malta hotel booking I checked the originating email. My name and the booking number in the email were correct, and when I hovered over the booking number it showed a Booking.com URL, and when I clicked it opened my booking in the Booking.com website and all details were correct. Everything clearly labelled and no grammatical errors. So all good..
I found it annoying that the notice said the pre-check-in form had to be completed to confirm the booking, but I had been asked to do a similar online check-in several times in Italy. However:
- The instructions stated that the form needed to be completed or the reservation would be cancelled – a clear red flag. Be suspicious of anything that creates urgency!
- I have never seen Booking.com request confirmation of payment details after you make the initial booking.
- I could have emailed or messaged the hotel to check that the email was valid – before proceeding!
- I had a closer look at the website providing the confirmation form and the web page address was in the hotel’s name.
- If I had checked the hotel website I would have seen that its URL was a different web address – it was part of the hotel chain website, not an individual hotel website.
So even though it looked legit, I should not have proceeded – but I was clearly not on a high enough scam alert!
The secure form was straightforward. Enter your name, email address, phone number, and credit card details for pre-authorisation. The form had validation, accurately identifying whether the details were correct and the type of credit card. Hit the Submit button and it started processing,, slowly.. then asked for the MasterCard security code that had pinged into my phone SMS.
Almost normal.. but at this point I thought hang on.. you’re being scammed! And I did not enter the security code.
So no scam transaction went through – but I had stupidly entered my credit card details into a scammer form. I let the hotel know that their Booking.com account had been hacked, and I cancelled the card, then faced the hassles of getting a replacement while travelling. I could have avoided these scam consequences easily by paying more attention: