Booking.com is one of the top sites for reserving accommodation all over the world. In fact, it handles hundreds of millions of visitors and bookings yearly. Unfortunately, its popularity also attracts scammers, and there are various Booking.com scams for both travelers and accommodation hosts to watch out for.
The fake reservation scam is one example, and this guide shows how to spot it.
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How Do Fake Reservations Work?
A fake reservation is, quite simply, when someone makes a booking to stay at a hotel or other form of accommodation, but actually have no intention of ever paying for it or turning up. They might use fake or invalid payment details to make the booking, for example, or various other out-of-the-ordinary methods when reserving.
As for why they do this, there can be various reasons. It can be a case of travelers booking stays at multiple hotels so they can pick and choose which one they want to actually use at a later date and just not turn up for the others. Or they might do it in the hopes of gaining rewards of some kind, like leveling up in the Booking.com Genius loyalty program.
Fake reservations can also be done for phishing reasons, to get the contact info for the hotel or rental property in question, and there have been alleged cases of people making fake bookings to use in their visa applications when trying to travel to other countries. In short, there are many possible reasons why these reservations may be made.
Signs of Fake Reservations on Booking.com
Sign 1. Invalid Payment Method
People who make fake reservations have no plans to actually pay for them and don’t want to risk inadvertently losing any money. So, they’ll often use fake payment details or won’t fully fill out their credit card information. If you try to validate their cards and see that they don’t work, there’s a reasonable likelihood the booking may be fake.
Sign 2. Unusual Communications from the Guest
As touched on earlier, guests may have various reasons for making fake bookings. They might just use them to get your contact details, for example, and then try and attempt a phishing scam or reach out to you with unusual requests. If guests start sending strange messages, links, attachments, or if they ask you to chat with them outside of Booking.com, those are all red flags.
Sign 3. Multiple Bookings
This is when you get bookings for your hotel that all perfectly follow one another, like a one-night booking from January 1 to January 2, followed by another that runs from January 2 to January 3, and so on. There’s usually no reason why a traveler would do this, instead of just making one longer booking, unless they’re trying to pull some sort of scam or marketing rewards trick.
Sign 4. Abnormal Amounts or Types of Bookings
Another warning sign to watch out for is simply when you witness booking activity that is abnormal or doesn’t follow the usual logical patterns. For example, if you host multiple properties, but suddenly get a huge amount of bookings at one of them and not the others. Or if you have bookings that ask for large amounts of rooms or run for a very long time, you should be wary.
How to Protect Yourself from Booking.com Fake Reservation Scams
- Keep a close eye on reservation activity to look for any warning signs.
- Sign up for Booking.com’s pre-authorization, which validates cards at the time of booking.
- Only chat with guests on the Booking.com messaging system.
- Don’t click any suspicious links that guests send.
- Use the Booking Extranet to report invalid cards, no-shows, and suspicious activity.
Report the Scam
You can report fake reservations directly to Booking.com’s support team via the site’s Extranet. Just go into your account, select “Booking.com Messages” and choose “Account > Other” as the subject. You may also report fraudulent activities as follows:
- Report to the FTC.
- Report to the FBI Internet Complaints Center.
How to Protect Yourself More
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