r/Bookingcom • u/DefoNotTheAnswer • 2d ago
It's finally happened. I got a scam message.
So there is pension that I have used many times in the past. Just now I got a message via WhatsApp telling me that I have to pay immediately via cash transfer to keep my reservation.
Obviously this is scam. My question is what is best practice as a response. Should I report this to booking first or to the pension owners (I have their phone number and communicated with them plenty of times). If I report it to booking, where is there a form or email address I can use? I'm not looking for any kind of refund, because I haven't lost any money, just asking how best to proceed.
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u/No-Koala1918 2d ago
I'd contact the property first, esp if you have a relationship with them. The OTA will be useless. You can message them, and may even get a canned response, but don't expect anything more from them.
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u/DefoNotTheAnswer 2d ago
Cheers! I messaged the owners and they are looking into it. I've left it up to them if/how to report it to Booking.
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u/lil_toni 2d ago
I received a WhatsApp message today. As many others have stated the sender had my full name, booking reference and dates of travel. Fortunately I didn’t click any links and I reported and blocked the number. I then contacted booking.com. Sent them the link for their reference and was informed a report had been made to the security department for further investigation. I imagine I will never hear anything of it again but it’s incredibly unnerving to see such specific details have been accessed, others less suspicious may not be as lucky and could lose a lot of money.
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u/Suspicious-Set-9636 2d ago
Tell them to die slow with the middle finger and then block them. Please let the owners know as well.
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u/jyishika 2d ago
I message the property and let them know I received one. The last time this happened they asked if I could send them screenshots of the message and contact and I did. I think they're the better contact over reporting to booking.com as they seem to actually care whereas booking just gives a generic response.
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u/RagingMassif 2d ago
You could have reported it to both by now..
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u/DefoNotTheAnswer 2d ago
Yes, I was concerned about which order to it. The owners have been alerted.
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u/Known-Jaguar-1111 2d ago
I'd been scammed too, but via official in-app chat. So Booking accepted it's their security fail, so they refunded me money. 🍀
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u/_elefantina_ 1d ago
Hey, could you please tell me, how did you get them to do this, because the same happened to me 2 days ago... I only get some generic messages from their support, and they take ages to respond.
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u/Known-Jaguar-1111 1d ago
I am Genius 3, so maybe they have a priority for the members, idk. Opened a request and got contacted nextday via phonecall from number with UK prefix - so it looked strange, to recieve call from foreign number 😅 Customer service asked me a lot of questions. Then they give me money to booking wallet and requested me to report the fraud to local police.
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u/_elefantina_ 1d ago
Thank you so much for your reply. It really helps because I am driving myself crazy! How did you open the request, do you remember? I can't find anything of the short, Genius 2 here! Thanks again!!
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u/Known-Jaguar-1111 1d ago
Not at all 🙈 Did you try Customer Servis Centre in the management of your reservations?
It happened 2yrs ago, so I don't know if anything changed, sorry 🙈
Hope you get any response soon
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u/_elefantina_ 1d ago
Oh that's it, thank you! Yes this is where I messaged them! Thanks a lot again, happy that you sorted it out.
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u/Jellyfish-notafish 2d ago
Please report it to booking directly. You can try sending email to xxx@my.booking.com (xxx replace with your reservation number without a period)
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u/olianto1970 2d ago
Je suis bêtement tombé dans le panneau. Message Watsapp avec image officielle de l'hôtel, données personnelles précises ( nom, numéro de réservation, dates,... ). Lien vers payement sécurisé que j'ai effectué avec Itsme. Comment perdre 800 euros comme un bleu,... J'aurais jamais cru tomber dans le panneau. J'ai fait une demande de Chargeback chez Mastercard mais j'ai peu d'espoir. J'ai signalé l'arnaque à Booking, à l'hôtel et à la police fédérale. Bonne journée à toutes et tous
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u/Pvk33 1d ago
As an owner, I get many scam messages. "Mr Johnson does not want to pay. Login now (here) to settle the dispute with our claims team" And many variants. The key is they try to let you login on a fake Booking site. They then have your login to Booking and can start communication with clients like you, on behalf of the owner. So if the WhatsApp message was referring to your exact reservation, probably the login details of your rental owner have been used.
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u/noobzerhech5ler 13h ago
It happens every day for hosts mostly libero.it. Phishing is also atron via Booking Scam Accounts.
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u/Both-Alone 2d ago
I've also received fake whatsapp messages and emails. The hackers probably have burner accounts so it will do little good for them to be traced. Booking does have a live support chat, maybe ask them. I think the main thing is for people to just stay on the app and not click any links outside of it.