This is scam right - Booking.com?

[cakeorwine]

Going on holiday soon. Suddenly got a message via Booking.com from the apartment saying payment declined, use the link below to pay or else the booking will be cancellled .Please pay in 2 hours.

It doesn't look over easy to report this to Booking.com

I think it's a hack via the owner's email?

I have updated my card details on Booking.com but not pressed the link

I will message the apartment and see their response.

I have messaged the apartment and asked them to reply to my messages.

Not just send a robotic reply about payment links

Yes I think a scam. Spelling and grammar is poor and the only written in capitals

I didn't realise you were past the cancellation point, yes at this stage ringing the property directly with a number from a google search seems like the most appropriate course of action. Hope you get it sorted.

Update:

They CANCELLED our booking. It turns out to be genuine. A bit of research showed that it looked like a genuine company who did rentals. I was going to ring the actual company tomorrow to check and I did email the company.

However, we got a cancellation confirmation today. Luckily we have booked somewhere else. However, the initial message and the communication did not give me much faith in them. I have messaged Booking.com to ask them to look into this - the first message definitely looked like a scam and there was no interaction in the follow up messages. Just "your card has been declined"

With Booking.com if the owner cancels they can face penalties so they often try and get you to.
I had a booking in London a couple of years ago and 2 days before I was due to go the company who owned the flat emailed me to say it wasn't available and I needed to cancel. I told them to cancel if needed but they tried very hard to get me to cancel instead.
I found out later from Booking.com that I only got their assistance with another booking at an upgraded property for the same amount because I hadn't cancelled
Might be something to do with that

It's on the website again so not sure if that's the case.

I have messaged BDC so will see what they say. I also have my "evidence" file.

I just can't believe they send a link through. It just looked like a scam. I did a bit of research this morning to see how genuine it looked.

Hi, I had similar last week.

As with you, it turned out not to be a scam - the destination wasn't inputting details correctly. The destination was in touch with me a number of times via b.com's messaging, but that is very unwieldy so I ended up dealing with the destination direct. I won't be using b.com again - too much hassle.

My sibling owns and runs a number of holiday places on booking . Com and takes payments directly, I'm not sure of the specifics but I know they changed a couple of years ago and like a pp says they do still have to pay commission but I think it might be that they get paid sooner than they would do otherwise