Hotel booking scam

[awbuggrit]

Anyone using the booking.com organisation be warned: Certain hotels have had their bookings hacked and guests will receive a message which appears to be from booking.com. Booking.com have not themselves been hacked but some individual hotels etc. have and you could receive a message to the effect that you need to click on a link to 'verify' your card within 12 hours. My advice is to contact the hostelry directly if you have any doubts. Don't ask me how I know

[OldBear]

Not a site I have used but concerning to say the least. I wonder whether it is just a "lucky" shot by the scammers in a mass mailing campaign rather than actually linked to booking.com itself.... I get loads of crap like this in my work email account wanting me to confirm payment for an order I haven't placed, most appear to have come from customers who have been less than careful with passwords for their email accounts and have had their address books scanned, a few where the email hosting provider has been subject to a direct server attack and information taken...
Hope you didn't lose out to these low life scum!!

[Nessi]

Booking.com
is notorious for people being scammed after using it...
The reality is booking.com is trying to pass the blame onto the hotels that are on the system.
But they are just trying to pass the buck and deny their own responsibility of their own system being so insecure that hackers are targeting people that have booked through them..

Sorry, but booking.com really needs to stop passing the buck and sort out the security vulnerabilities of its own system.

You will find loads about it on the internet

booking.com scams have been a regular news topic on TV for quite a while
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67583486

Its nothing new that booking.com is plagued with scams it seems a scammers paradise..
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-62407046

[awbuggrit]

Looks like we've been lucky as we've used them for many years with no trouble whatsoever. Fortunately our credit card company intercepted and blocked the payment to Bulgaria! We found out more about these scams on BBC news and the the Guardian , after the event of course. Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?

[awbuggrit]

Not a site I have used but concerning to say the least. I wonder whether it is just a "lucky" shot by the scammers in a mass mailing campaign rather than actually linked to booking.com itself.... I get loads of crap like this in my work email account wanting me to confirm payment for an order I haven't placed, most appear to have come from customers who have been less than careful with passwords for their email accounts and have had their address books scanned, a few where the email hosting provider has been subject to a direct server attack and information taken...
Hope you didn't lose out to these low life scum!!

I think it's the individual hotels that have been infiltrated, because the message we received came on the same booking email which we placed in July and from which we received our booking confirmation, that's why it looked so genuine. However, nothing else appears to be affected thank goodness.

[OldBear]

Firstly I'm glad you didn't lose out, credit card companies have improved a lot security wise ove the years, sometimes it's a pain in the ass having to be called when you buy on-line for example but it really does help with stopping these low lifes.
It may well be down to someone working within Booking.com, you are only as secure as the staff you employ and the type of access you allow into the database(s). Anything that is on-line with remote access is hackable, it's only down to a matter of time....

[awbuggrit]

From what I can gather, it's not booking com that has the security breach, it's malware installed on individual hotels' systems which then accesses all their bookings via bookings.com, sending out requests for payment on their communication systems and so on, which of course then gives to the scammers not the hotel.

[awbuggrit]

Certain hotels have been fooled allowing malware to access all their bookings which in turn makes any communication look as if it has come via the bookings.com site. Any monies then go to the scammers. Our credit card company were certainly in the ball, I had a text message asking me if I recognised the pending payment while I was actually phoning them , but having to press this option, that option etc etc- you know the score! Why there can't be a dedicated fraud line instead of that bloody rigmarole is beyond my comprehension. Speed is of the essence I would have thought. Fortunately no payment details are kept on the booking.com as far as I'm aware, customers get fooled into inputting their payment details.

[Nessi]

From what I can gather, it's not booking com that has the security breach, it's malware installed on individual hotels' systems which then accesses all their bookings via bookings.com, sending out requests for payment on their communication systems and so on, which of course then gives to the scammers not the hotel.

It is everything to do with the booking.com system not being secure enough

Booking.com is far from safe, they have not kept up with the tech modern-day scammers are using.

Hence why so many vendors' systems that use booking.com are getting infiltrated by scammers..
If it was just the odd one you could say it was the vendors at fault but there is loads so that is a vulnerability with the booking.com system,