Booking.com scam

[Flatlily]

I've used Booking.com probably 100s of times, both in UK and abroad. We are away most weekend during summer and do 2-3 short breaks somewhere warm in the winter.

This is the first time I've ever had a problem, but it's making me nervous for future trips.

We booked a flat in a UK city for 2 nights. When we booked it was a new property with no reviews, but it was a good location for the event we were going to and a good price, so we decided someone needs to be first and probably that was the reason it was cheap. Booked a year ago because we expected accomodation to get more expensve/be in short supply becuase of the event. Lessons learned.

We arrived to find the lockbox that was supposed to have the key wasn't there. Other residents told us they weren't supposed to have Airbnb type arrangements and the building manager removed the boxes when he sees them, although lots of people do.

We tried to contact the owner. No answer or response to messages. We contacted Booking.com who said they'd try and contact, they had no luck. We said we'd just cancel then, but they said they have to give the owner 30 min to respond.

By this point we were getting tight for time for the event that was the purpose of the trip, and thankfully on this occasion we had the car, so were able to book a reasonably priced Travelodge a few miles out. We've since had a message to say they weren't able to make contact and the booking will be refunded. So, all's well that ends well, but it did make the trip quite stressful and could have been much worse if we'd been on public transport, as we often are for city breaks, or in an unfamiliar country.

Having looked back at the lisiting, there are multiple reviews since we booked, that make it clear this a scam (yes, with hindsight should have checked), so Booking.com knew, they knew they had our booking and didn't contact to let us know/cancel/rebook.

Is there any point complaining about that? Would you? What would you expect the outcome to be?

The exact same thing happened to me. I booked then realised on the day, based on reviews, that it was a scam.

I found it nearly impossible to speak to an actual person at Booking.com as most calls seem to be fielded by "ai powered agents". In the end I did get through to an actual person who, after the allotted 30 mins, stated the booking would be cancelled and refunded.

I explained that due to the very short notice, all other accommodation would be much more expensive than when I originally booked, and requested they cover the difference for a comparable property on their website.

They agreed but then, despite me sending follow up emails after the trip, they then proceeded to ignore me.

I had booked by credit card so am now waiting for a resolution from my credit card company for a chargeback. Could you do this op?

As for complaining, you can, but I doubt they would reply. Apparently they dont verify the authenticity of their properties at all

Wow… a very very seasoned holiday maker and you didn’t check the reviews!

Or you didn't read my post?

As I said there were no reviews when we booked. The reviews are all recent and since we booked.

So you will now leave a review to also say a scam hopefully

I would never book anywhere with zero reviews but each to their own

Yes, and as I said lesson learned, but how does a property get reviews if no one will go first?

I had a multi country trip booked through them.

booking.com cancelled all hotel bookings without telling me. When I contacted them they said it was a “security issue”.

Had I not checked to pay, I would’ve been stranded in a foreign country with no place to stay

I don’t think you need to worry about using booking
com again, just use properties with reviews. It’s annoying they’ve not taken the listing down but I don’t think it’s something you need to ditch the website for after hundreds of good holidays

I totally agree op. There is absolutely no need for the smug passive aggressive posts. For what its worth, I am also a very seasoned traveller and had the exact same reasoning. I booked on my credit card to give myself extra protection, which was needed in this instance. But for every bona fide property, someone always has to go first.

I don't use them and would never use them. There's an interesting article on them in the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/aug/01/bookingcom-money-back-refund

Even if nothing on booking.com it’s still often possible to find a Google review. On the rare occasion that I can’t find anything I’ll make contact with the owner, scams won’t usually engage with you via email and you can often work out where they are - if the accommodation is in Italy and the persons ip address is in that area of Italy it’s more likely to be genuine than an ip in China! If using a vpn id be suspicious too

Yes, and on this occasion it was never going to be the end of the world so it was worth the risk.

I'd still expect them to have cancelled future bookings once they knew it was a scam though.

Thanks I'll have a look. Out of interest how do you book accomodation? I used to spend time on Google searches and booking direct but now many properties don't bother with their own website and those that do often use Booking.com as their booking platform.

So that leaves package holidays or chain hotels?

Yes, which we did after we'd checked into the Travelodge and drove back into the city.

We use Agoda, which has never let us down. I'm not sure about their uk presence.

I've not had any issues and used it this year for Sri Lanka for multiple hotels and a villa. One place did have their messaging system hacked and it knew details of our booking so I would be careful what you do via messaging and don't go onto any other portals /pay outside booking.com. I do always make sure there are reviews, that the reviews appear genuine (ones mentioning staff names in every review are generally fake) and I also cross check to see if the hotel has a website and everything looks above board. I also found them helpful in covid for getting refunds and not had any issues since - I generally book free cancellation, no prepayment.

I don’t regard that as my problem…. To build up reviews for owners.

I play it safe, especially if I was going to an event, and only ever book places with extensive reviews

My Dds then boyfriend organised a 6month placement for uni in Barcelona, booked a flat in the city through Booking.com, got to Barcelona late at night, and accomodation did not exist. He spent the first night in a hotel and then fortunately was able to move into uni halls

So. Booking have refunded the cost of the original booking and covered the difference for the hotel we booked.

How did you get through to a person? We were told by the hotel that we’d get a refund but can’t get anything done through booking.com

Or Airbnb or VRBO, or have you had bad customer service from them too?

There's a call us button under customer services in your account. You go back and forth with a bot for a while but do speak to a person eventually.