Booking.com SCAM emails

munsterfan2

Hi,

Looks like a hotel in Kilkee, Clare had their vendor account compromised ( or else booking.com was compromised ) as I got the email in the attached image asking for payment update to hold my booking. It had the correct email address, booking hotel, dates etc so was a plausible attempt. The link looking for payment was a fake looking domain which was the give away.

Wheety

Jesus, imagine how many will fall for that if it has your booking details.

The Nal

Yep

https://grahamcluley.com/fraudsters-target-booking-com-customers-claiming-hotel-stay-could-be-cancelled/

Dial Hard

This has been all over the press lately.

https://www.irishtimes.com/your-money/2023/10/30/readers-alarmed-and-out-of-pocket-as-bookingcom-scams-stack-up/

https://m.independent.ie/business/technology/hackers-target-weak-spots-in-bookingcom-phishing-scam/a1515541015.html

The Nal

Got repeated emails and texts apparently from a hotel Im staying in this spring for the last 4 months asking for more details. Only got an email from the hotel this morning warning it was a scam.

10-10-20

Booking.com playing this down massively.

Booking.com denies security breach after phishing scam attempt made on its website

https://jrnl.ie/6312193

Concerning.

Shield

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121839799#Comment_121839799

I second this. It’s not just booking.com though. It’s hotels.com, trivago.com, or even travel agents like Tripadvisor that are catching people out if they don’t carefully examine the URL they’re being redirected to. By the time most people realise they’ve been scammed, their money has been moved to Nigeria or Ghana or Kenya or Somalia or to a mixture of more than one country known for this exact scam, and your money is gone with very little chance of you getting it back.

The advice that is offered in such situations is to immediately cease communicating with the person who has contacted you and contact the agency with whom you booked the holiday, or contact the hotel directly using the contact details from their official website. Always be suspicious of unsolicited contact from your holiday provider or agent looking for you to “confirm” details of any kind, particularly if they are putting you under time constraints or insisting you will pay a financial penalty if you don’t comply with the urgency of their demands.

This is not how the likes of booking.com or hotels.com operate, so take a few breaths, verify everything for yourself by making contact with your agent/reseller directly and you won’t become another victim this summer.

-Shield

L1011

Something is leaking somewhere, because the phishing attempts are using the details of the hotel booked.

There's been a recent huge breach of a mass texting supplier, so if there's confirmation texts that could be one way; otherwise I'd be looking at the big hotel room management vendors if booking.com are telling the truth.

JVince

Booking.com is effectively a marketplace like done deal or similar.

The accomodation providers log in and enter all the details and view the bookings.

If the hotel provides someone with their login details, then that person has all customer details at their fingertips.

My guess is it is most likely that the hotel has allowed it's login details become compromised - but booking.com possibly don't have different levels of security for different users within an account.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121840182#Comment_121840182

Its vastly more than one hotel based on stuff that's getting posted on social media/reddit/etc.

There's only so many vendors of room management setups for hotels, if one of those is breached loads of hotels are breached.

Shield

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121840193#Comment_121840193

Agreed, but somebody should be contacting them about this yesterday because of the clear danger this poses… preferably someone who can point to their data being leaked. This is horrific if true.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121840218#Comment_121840218

The problem is that the usual response when reporting a potential, or provable, data breach to a company is to hit low level staff and get either a denial or sometimes even threats - "you must have hacked us to see that!" sort of stuff. And most people can't gather enough evidence.

Media is often a better approach as that may get the attention of someone senior.

JVince

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121840193#Comment_121840193

Booking have tens of thousands of hotels and scammers will target all of them. Even if 0.001% are compromised, that will be dozens of places.

I get Airbnb scam emails saying account compromised and please click link to enter new details.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121840235#Comment_121840235

The airbnb stuff is going to be scattergun based on such a huge % of people having airbnb accounts. Just like the AIB/PTSB/BOI text messages - nobody has yet bothered scattergunning with my obscure credit union current account provider).

This is something more significantly organised and booking.com should be investigating as its their brand being used.

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121840245#Comment_121840245

I know AirBbB challenges every new weird login - does Booking.com - this should be the most basic of checks of logins (for sites like this) if indeed it is at the provider side. This could very easily have been a mass email targeting campaign to get booking.com login details (or any booking site). There is plenty of people out there who do not check email links.

The Nal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121839799#Comment_121839799

I booked a hotel in America for April. Booked last August via booking.com and I reckon Ive received 20 text and emails since asking me to click this link and register before my stay. Went on for months even after i mailed the hotel directly to tell them theyd been hacked with no response until a few days ago.

I work in cyber security. Its astonishing how lax companies are about it.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121840110#Comment_121840110

That's fine having all of us here on the same page with this, but the issue is with less technical users or older individuals. The implementation of the scam is so effective in the way that it's carried out that even if you working in IT and are scam-aware, you'd still be doing well to avoid falling into it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121840245#Comment_121840245

Massively damaging to their brand, absolutely. It's effectively a dice-roll now. I'd say many cases aren't being reported publicly on the basis of embarrassment.

irishgeo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121840831#Comment_121840831

Its also a GDPR breach.

Regardless of where the hotel is, if you do business with EU citizens GDPR applies.

parc

Best advice when booking via Booking.com is to choose pay now, pay later (ie payment is taken automatically from your card a few days before you check in), or just pay at the property. Never pay via a link from the supposed hotel.

These data breaches are on the hotel side and very hard to stop. Booking.com is a massive company and will have security measures in place, but the weak link is on the hotel side.