Hotel Booking Scam? Attention: Invalid Credit Card, Update Now

Frank Ryan Jr

Watch out for this and if it's happened to you also let me know as I want to take this further with Booking.

Works like this:
I booked a hotel through Booking a few months ago. (used them several times bfore with the same VISA card details with no issues).
Got the usual 'Your booking is confirmed' emails etc.

So they don't actually take the payment - the Hotel you booked do, and they can do so pretty much from the second you book or they can even leave it until you check out - but normally they will take the payment a week before your stay.

So I then get an email 2 days before my stay saying:

Please update your credit card details
The credit card you provided could not be processed by Hotel R****o.
Your booking for 26 July to 29 July is still valid.
We suggest contacting your card provider for more information on this issue.
To confirm your booking, update your card details, or add a new credit card within the next 24 hours.


Your booking is still confirmed...but
You need to update your credit card in order to guarantee your stay. Please do this within the next 24 hours.

Why is my credit card invalid?
The property indicated that your credit card is invalid. Please check you correctly entered the numbers in our system, or provide alternative credit card details.
Hotel Rialto processes payments - not Booking.com. For urgent payment-related questions, contact them directly.

Fair enough. So I just added another Card number and that was that.
(Although I got no actual comfirmation that the payment went through from either Booking or the Hotel - even after I emaioed and asked the hotel was the other Card payment OK.

NOW, here's the thing.
Sure card payments fail for one reason or another - but I called the Card Company - the HOTEL NEVER TRIED TO TAKE THE PAYMENT.
(let that sink in for a second)

Off to the hotel we go.
I then find out that from our group of 7.
3 of us got the same email.
Unfortunately for one of our group who had booked for 4 of the guys - he was working the night they sent the email and they cancelled his booking.

(starting to see what they are doing right?)

So yeah - I asked the manager what the problem was with my card,
he gave some mumbo jumbo about he didn't know and it could have been anything, the pin or the code at the back.
(All BS because they never even tried in the first place.)

So yeah, 4 of our party had to pay over the odds to get another hotel and you can bet your behind those 4 rooms were resold at a nice profit.

Has this happened to you?

TheChizler

If the card details were wrong from the start the card company would have no record of the attempt, as the attempt would never be associated with your card.

Though it's a little strange it happened to a few of you. Could be a processing issue at their end.

messrs

I booked a hotel through Booking.com and same thing happened, i had also booked all my family in the same hotel on my card, got notification from Booking.com that there was an issue with my card, i updated my details and all was fine then - however i did get a confirmation email after i updated card details to say new details were received and all was okay with the booking. There was notification on the original message saying if not answered in 24 hours then the booking would be cancelled

Frank Ryan Jr

TheChizler wrote: »

If the card details were wrong from the start the card company would have no record of the attempt, as the attempt would never be associated with your card.

Though it's a little strange it happened to a few of you. Could be a processing issue at their end.

Well, the card details are stored on Bookings site as I've used them a lot (4 times this past year). There was no problem with the card. True, they could be totally incompetent and have entered 3 seperate cards incorrectly, or, thier machine may be broken, but highly highly unlikely.

ted1

Could of bring an issue with the card company.
Some if the group could have been with a different bank or had visa while others had MasterCard

TheChizler

Frank Ryan Jr wrote: »

Well, the card details are stored on Bookings site as I've used them a lot (4 times this past year). There was no problem with the card. True, they could be totally incompetent and have entered 3 seperate cards incorrectly, or, thier machine may be broken, but highly highly unlikely.

Oh I got the impression you had to input the card details on the hotel's site as booking didn't handle the payment.

elainee40

I had this about 3 wks ago for a stay in Paris, updated card, got email saying thanks for updating, 2 days later got email saying booking cancelled from hotel as I never updated card. Tried to rebook same hotel and prices jumped 200 euro.

For same trip I had booked another hotel previously and then cancelled a hotel for free...got email confirmation that cancelled for free. Sitting in Paris on last day checked my account, said hotel (which I cancelled) took out the cost of hotel saying I didn't cancel....so call made to booking.com....i need wait 10 days for refund.

Deub

When the issue happen? Visa and Mastercard had technical issues recently where payments were declined.

Frank Ryan Jr

Tue, Jul 24, 12:27 PM

Oh and I got them to check and there was no issues at the time.
The Hotel basically emailed the 3 of us and said our cards were declined.
We all checked, none of our banks ever got an authorization attempt.
One of us missed the email - the hotel cancelled and stuffed them.
Only that he checked his emails on the morning of departure 4 of them in the group would have been turned away at the desk.
Plus, I did try and contact the hotel (as advised in the email from Booking.com) and they never replied.
They never gave me a straight answer at the hotel either.
So, there are the facts, make what you will out of it. I've made up my own mind as to what they did.
I it walks like a duck and all... :-P

Juliett78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/107668989#Comment_107668989

I experienced a similar issue when booking a hotel through Booking.com. After an initial problem with my payment card, I updated my information, and Booking.com sent me a confirmation email verifying the successful update

spurious

Got the attached (and a follow up one appearing to be from booking.com) regarding an upcoming booking in Lisbon. It has been fully paid for.

Smelt a rat, rang the hotel directly and they confirmed there was no issue with my booking and to ignore the messages and certainly not click on the link. From a thread on reddit it seems booking,com have some security issues.

booking2.jpg

L_E_T_U_T_T_I

When the issue happen? Visa and Mastercard had technical issues recently where payments were declined.

spurious

According to reddit it has been going on at least three months

The dodgy site they try to send you to is *******.reservationapproval.com

******* being the name of a well known site

spurious

Message now received saying there was a 'system issue' with booking.com and 'inappropriate' messages were sent.

Warning to ignore and not click on links etc..

I would be fully sure certain relatives of mine, had they received those messages would have clicked instantly since they came through the booking.com app.

thebiglad

Happens to me a lot when I use Booking.com (I now use this site as a last resort, i.e. smaller places/independent hotels where the likes of Expedia have little cover) - as noted earlier I think booking.com simply lists the hotels but in reality the hotel processes the payments etc.

When this happened to me I called the hotel and gave card details by phone and got confirmation immediately that the booking was confirmed, they told me they had trouble to process the payment as I was not present to put my pin into their machine, but over the phone with the 3 numbers from back they could do it -probably Booking.com doesn't give them this info (good!) and their credit card machines are not set up appropriately.

I travel quite a lot and doesn't happen with any other site.

endofrainbow

hello dear guest would have me running for the hills.

spurious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121434214#Comment_121434214

Yes, though it coming through the booking.com messaging system was odd.

finbarrk

It happened to me also. It seems to be a scam that some Hotels use on busy periods as a way of cancelling your booking as they can resell the room for more money than the original booking.

10-10-20

Article here on this scam:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67591310

For at least a year, fraudsters have been able to infiltrate its app and trick users out of hundreds of pounds.

The company, which is one of the biggest hotel and holiday websites in the world, has not itself been hacked.

Instead, criminals have tricked their way into the administration portals of individual hotels that use the service.

This enables them to send messages from the official app and fool customers into paying them instead of the hotel.

finbarrk

Thanks. That probably explains it so.