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Lanon Wee

Booking.com users express dissatisfaction with company's response to security breaches

Booking.com users have expressed outrage over the company's inability to protect them from cyber criminals. At least for 12 months, scammers have successfully breached its app and deceived people into losing hundreds of pounds. Many individuals have informed the BBC that they have experienced a monetary loss, with one individual reporting that the travel company had not provided the services they had promised. Booking.com declared that they are introducing new safety measures; however, they emphasized there is no single solution. One of the world's largest hotels and vacation websites has not experienced a breach in security. Criminals have deceived their way into the management entryways of particular hotels that utilize the service. This allows them to deceive consumers through messages sent from the official app and collect payments instead of the hotel. This fraud has existed over the past year, but appears to have intensified recently, with cybercriminals turning to the dark web for additional targets. Colleen Marples, a 44-year-old woman from the Derbyshire Dales, had £147 go to waste when reserving a trip to Egypt for her husband's 50th birthday in March. After messaging the hotel in Cairo through the Booking.com app, she received a payment request. Unfortunately, this had come from scammers - not the hotel she initially thought she was conversing with. She explained to the BBC that she had not suspected the link was a scam because it was part of the same conversation within the app. She has been unsuccessful in her attempts to recoup the money from the website or her bank. Booking.com may not consider it a great amount of money, however it is of significance in the context of everyday life. Booking.com has a responsibility to their customers, yet they have failed to meet this obligation in this situation. I am still fighting to receive my refund. One British customer, who requested anonymity, informed the BBC they were deceived via the app and consequently lost £1,200. He is also striving to obtain a reimbursement and declared he was "very disappointed". I think that, as a customer who decides to use the corporation's established platform, you can have confidence in a level of protection and reliability from within that system. Ian Robinson, aged 64 and residing in Cumbria, was the target of a scam twice while making bookings for a road trip in the UK. He was contacted at two different hotels in distinct towns and asked to pay a total of £122 and then £283. He mentioned that he was lucky to have phoned the hotels directly, thus dodging an issue, but when he notified Booking.com, they weren't responsive. A spokesman for Booking.com declared that there exists no single remedy to get rid of all online fraud, though the firm's security personnel are continually monitoring and countering new dangers. We are taking fresh steps to guarantee the safety of both our customers and partners by incorporating fresh security functions to barricade or obstruct inactive partner administrator accounts, which is where we have observed fraudulent behaviour happen after con artists acquire illegitimate admission to the hotel's Booking account. The firm stated that they are also vigilantly tracking for any odd behaviour on their app and disabling any links that seem unauthorised when shared in conversations. Kris Bramwell and Osob Elmi contributed reporting.

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