It was only after sharing her credit-card information that she began to suspect foul play;a subsequent phone call to her sister,who had similar bookings and had also been targeted with the same message request,confirmed her worst suspicions.
“I realised then I’d been scammed,and I felt like an idiot as it had never happened to me before,” she said.
Brown described the con as a “very sophisticated” operation. “Somehow the scammers must have gained access to the hotel’s email. I immediately froze my credit card and I contacted the hotel.”
Brown also notified Booking.com,who said their fraud team would be in touch. At the time of writing,she is yet to hear from the company.
Brown is one of several Booking.com users who havecontactedTraveller since November with similar experiences of phishing messages via hacked host accounts on the Booking.com platform.
Scams targeting Booking.com customers increased nearly sevenfold last year,according to data from Australia’s consumer rights watchdog.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Scamwatch program received 363 reports of scams mentioning Booking.com between January 2 and December 31,2023,amounting to losses of more than $337,000.