How to protect yourself from fraud and cheating on Booking.COM and other sites

The demand gives rise to a sentence: thousands of new objects of accommodation appear on the assembly sites. And the owners of some of them may be unfair.

How does this happen

The largest online booking systems hotels, Booking.COM and Agoga.COM, guarantee the client in the face of the tourist Security and the safety of payment data. However, among the owners of accommodation objects, there are sometimes fraudsters who find ways to deceive the system. In case of a critical situation in the tab “Contacts” Both sites show email address and telephone number for emergency communication — save them in your smartphone in advance.

Settlement to another hotel.

Booking a hotel, a tourist carefully considers photos, reads reviews, explores the location of the hotel regarding transportation and attractions. But it can happen that, having arrived in another country, the tourist will hear from the hotel administrator or the owner itself: “Sorry, there are no places on your dates. But we can offer you a room with the best living conditions in one of our network hotels”. Of course, the hotel where the tourist is brought, is somewhere on the outskirts of the city, and the conditions are much worse there: the leaking faucet, non-working air conditioning, dirty bed linen… Tourist are trying to convince him located in the best hotel of the city and simply not aware of his own happiness.

What to do in this case

It is impossible to go on scammers. If the money has already been written off from your card, insist on return. Perhaps the unfinished owner of the hotel chain will offer some more options to choose from, but really good among them will not be. The owner will bargain and wind nerves until the latter, arguing that money needs to be demanded with “Buking” or “Agodi”, And he has nothing to do with. This is a lie: the placement object independently writes money from customers. Report a fraudster that you are traveling and know how the booking systems work. It is allowed negotiating sharp form. If you do not speak well enough to English, set out your writing requirements using applications translators. Usually in such cases fraudsters bored scandalous visitors and money returned in cash.

Calling on the hotline of the booking system is in the event that you had to pay accommodation in check-in, but there were no free places in the selected hotel suddenly. Especially loyal to tourists in this regard “Bucking”. Employees will try in the shortest possible time to choose a similar accommodation option at a similar price. If the option found is more expensive, you must keep the check for paying for accommodation and send it to the email address “Buking”. Within a few days you will be returned to the map difference in price.

Refusal in returning funds for canceling booking with free cancellation

Booking hotels a few months before arrival, tourists try to choose options with free cancellation. Some placement objects request credit card data that allegedly needed only to guarantee booking.

Before entering all the data, be sure to read the conditions written in very small font. If you see the phrase “The placement object can write off your funds at any time” — better choose another hotel.

Even if the money is written off from the card, the free cancellation assumes that they will be returned in full, if the tourist suddenly change its plans and decides to refuse this accommodation option. Changing the reservation, you will receive a notice of the period during which the funds written off will return to the map.

But it can happen that the placement object will pull the time and, in the end, the money will not return.

What to do in this case

Do not hurry to mourn lost funds. Write a letter to support “Buking” (it is in this system that fraud cases have increased in recent times), specify the number and PIN booking code, set out the essence of the problem in detail. After sending the appeal, the site will highlight: “Thanks for the appeal! We will try to answer you over the next 24 hours”. But everything is not so simple: support staff ignore most of the appeals. In order for the money to be returned to you, call the hotline.

It is best to call by number for Genius clients: +7 (499) -271-87-34.

Even if you own English at the carrier level, talk with our-speaking staff: you can request bank documents that, with more probability, will be in our.

According to the regulations, “Bucking” binds to the placement object and gives him a few days during which money should be returned to the client.

If the placement object does not send documents confirming the return of funds, all the data is redirected to the financial department – the funds of the victim will return himself “Bucking”. Unfortunately, after that, several times will have to call the support service and ask how things are promoted in the Financial Department. Employees of the Call Center will first call timing from 7 to 12 business days, and then promise that “The other day you must come a letter”.

Money stolen by unscrupulous hotel, “Bucking” Really returns – a letter from the address Customer comes to the mail.Care @ Booking.COM and the topic of the letter “SS Invitation”. The letter contains a link to enter data cards where money must be credited.

Write off funds for canceled booking

Cancel Booking, Client “Buking” forgets him safely. And, of course, he is experiencing extremely negative emotions when he receives an SMS-notification of removal of funds for accommodation in the placement facility, the booking of which has long been canceled. Most likely, this is a continuation of the story described above.

According to one of the untested versions, the payment details that the tourist enters allegedly only to guarantee the reservation, for a while they become available to the owner or administrator of the placement object. Booking support staff.COM does not give on this subject of the unequivocal explanation: some say that the owner of the placement object can rewrite the credit card data of the tourist, including the three-digit code, others argue that “Be this can not”.

What to do in this case: first go to your bank’s mobile app and find out the status of the payment transaction. If it expects confirmation, try to call the bank hotline and cancel the transaction. Credit card in this case will block. But it can happen that the bank’s call center operators will repeat in a circle of the same phrase: “With you write off the funds of the trade point for the service provided, we have no reason to cancel the transaction”. Even if you break the voice, shouting the operator that you are robbed, the transaction will spend in any case, and your card will be blocked. Since you have the next procedure for returning money, do not agree to block – in this case you will not be able to form a report on the movement of funds on your card with confirmation of money to the hotel-fraudster.

Similar cases on “Bucking” – rarity. But in no case do not lower your hands: take a bank statement, where the stolen amount is indicated not only in the currency, but also in rubles. Next you will have to communicate with the support service “Buking”. Be prepared for the fact that the support service specialist will not immediately understand the essence of the problem and will insist that the date of your arrival has not yet come. That is why send an appeal through the form on the site indicating the booking room and the PIN code. Specify when the reservation was made and when you canceled it if you have once returned money, write all the dates and terms.

Regulation obliges employees of the support service to make a request to the placement object, so you have to wait a few days before your documents will be transferred to the Financial Department “Buking”. Require the operator to check if the format of your bank statement is suitable for returning funds.

Before you get a letter “SS Invitation”, A few weeks can pass: the financial department of the aggregator conducts a thorough check and may still try to get money from the hotel.

If you, having received your money back, did not have time to block or reassure the map in time, be prepared for the fact that the unscrupulous placement object will write money again. As a rule, the fraudster hoteliers write off the client and the same amount. Be sure that “Bucking” will return your money, and in rubles at the rate of removal. In addition, you have the right to demand the following from the aggregator:

interest that were accrued for the increasing amount of the credit card debt;

Reimbursement of funds spent on calls in “Bucking” – The aggregator has no free numbers;

moral compensation (usually pay 25 euros).

The aggregator will reimburse your costs only when providing relevant documents.

Why occasion cases of fraud in such a system like Booking.Com

“Bucking” Working since 1996. It would seem that the operation of the system should be clearly debugged, and the data is reliably protected. But it is precisely a huge amount of accommodation objects, and tourists leads to the fact that the aggregator does not have the ability to control the actions of each of them.

The hotel may not be places, because the owners sell on “Bucking” more numbers than in fact. So they are trying to protect themselves: many tourists book hotels only to obtain a visa or simply cancel the reservation at the last moment.

Much more difficult to explain situations where hotel owners write off money on canceled booking. Perhaps their terminal is configured in such a way that funds are removed from the client and immediately after booking, and that day, when the cancellation ceases to be free, and on the last day – as a fine for the nonsense. Command “Buking” Actively struggling with fraud on the site: contracts with trainer-frauds are terminated, hotels are brought to a blacklist, which is transmitted to partner aggregators.

Some tourists laid out in the network as evidence of unreliability “Buking” Prints on the cards found at the administrator rack. Do not trust them: In this case, more than half of the hotelians would use these cards of their guests.

However, in practice, there were unique cases when the tourist booked an average price category hotel, after which he received an SMS-notification for removal of funds in the amount of available credit limit for accommodation at the class hotel “lux”. As a rule, in such cases support service “Buking” help can not and it comes to court.

How to protect yourself

Never enter on “Bucking” and other aggregators credit card data. Put this case by a debit card of the Visa or MasterCard payment system with cheap annual service, the virtual (digital) card will also fit. Money on such a map should not be. Some hotels, despite the possibility of free rejection to a specific date, try to immediately write off the customer cards. If the attempt fails, the booking is automatically canceled. No fines with you will not take a hotel nor the booking system.

Each booking shows the date that you can make free cancellation. Sometimes the placement object relieves money from the map that is on this day. So write to the object in advance and specify when you need to pay. On the eve of the specified day, replenish the map strictly for the required amount.

If you booked a hotel with payment upon arrival, be sure to print the booking confirmation from the site with the amount of payment in the local currency. So the owners of the placement object will not be able to deceive you, calling a completely different digit.

Faced with fraud, contact your bank and make a card reissue. It is desirable that the bank gives you a card with a new number.

Write to the placement object at least a week before arrival. Ask you to explain to how to get from the airport and station, sent a photo of the entrance door and nearby landmarks, and ask whether there is an opportunity to leave things after check-out. There is no reason for concern if the staff willingly respond to all questions. If your questions ignore – it is better to book another hotel.