WARNING: Booking.com scam - now with a few tips.

[Workingman]

If any of you have booked, or are booking, rooms with Booking.com be aware that it has been hacked and now hit by scammers.

The scam works through e-mails purporting to be from Booking.com and also from your hotel asking for prepayment of your booking. Because of the hack, names and dates of the bookings are known. All the logos - Booking.com and hotel - look legitimate, but if you have to contact either of them get a phone number from somewhere else.

Whatever you do do NOT pay up front.

[Lozzles]

I heard this on the news WM

[Workingman]

I see a few o0f you have had a peep, so here is some info you might find useful to help keep you safe from scammers.

I could make an e-mail template up in no time. It would look the real deal in every way - logos, mission statements, phone numbers, links........ but it would be fake. If I can do it anybody can do it.

My first instinct and golden rule with e-mails I do not expect is: "Be suspicious". Question what is being said or asked for especially with PIN, account details or requests for payments.

Once my suspicions are roused I then follow a set of simple rules if it might be from a company I use:

* Have a look at the From field to see who sent the message. If you copy and paste the sender's 'name@company' details into google it can often give you a quick idea
* Always have your status bar on, you can then see where a link is actually going by hovering over it.
* Do not click on any link
* Do not phone any number
* Check the domain is correct .com .org .co.uk (google is your friend) nickyourmoney.com is not the same as nickyourmoney.co.uk but easily overlooked
* Get a good phone number for the company from here: http://www.192.com/people/directory-enquiries/ if you want to phone them
* Use the known website Contact Us service
* Forward the e-mail to the Contact Us e-mail service. In the Subject line say POSSIBLE SCAM and in the body of your e-mail expalin why.

If I do not deal with the "company" I simply delete the e-mail from my computer. I then go to my e-mail provider(s) - Hotmail, Gmail - and mark it as spam and then delete it from the server.

Note: You can always see the message source to get more detail, but unless you know what you are looking for it is not really worth it.

Be Safe.

[TheOstrich]

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to post that, WM - much appreciated by all, I'm sure. You can never get too many reminders ....

Ossie

[Workingman]

Thank you, Ossie. If taking just a bit of care saves one person a lot of hassle and heartbreak then I'll be happy.

[Kaz]

Yes thanks Frank I have never used them so didn't reply before, but certainly appreciate you putting it on here for our members xxxxxxxxxx

[Paddypix]

Thanks for the warning Frank. I've used them in the past but not lately so I'll be vigilant in future, or better still, stop using Booking.com altogether. There are plenty of sites that do the same job.

[Ally]

Thanks for that Frank - we use that site a LOT!!!

The latest time being last Wednesday.

[JoM]

Thanks Frank, we've used it many times and I checked if we'd booked the hotel for this coming weekend through them because I knew I'd been looking on there but it seems I booked directly with Ramada.