'Our Thailand Booking.com villa was a scam'
After a 30-hour journey, Judy and Richard Loader arrived in Phuket, Thailand, to find that their villa – booked via Booking.com – didn’t exist.
Judy had booked the villa for more than £4,000 for a long-awaited Christmas-time holiday with their children and grandchildren.
But when they arrived at the address, there was no sign of it.
The family soon realised that the listing was a scam, and they were faced with the prospect of having nowhere to stay just a few days before Christmas.
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Stranded in Thailand
‘Our distress was huge. Children in tears, no toilet, no food, no drink, foreign land and darkness descending,’ Judy said.
Judy told us that before travelling, they had phoned Booking.com many times to express concern that they couldn’t get a reply from the villa owner either by phone or email. ‘We were told not to worry, and in the worst-case scenario, we would not be homeless and it would cover extra costs if other accommodation had to be found,’ Judy said.
After discovering that the villa didn't exist, they waited six hours for Booking.com to respond to them. Eventually, they decided to find their own accommodation for the first night and the remaining six days.
Booking.com did refund the cost of the villa, less £80. It didn’t offer any other reimbursement for additional accommodation costs, the phone call charges and unplanned travel. But most surprising is that the non-existent villa continued to be listed on its platform, even after Which? got in touch with Booking.com.
‘Our protests at the time on the phone, and since by emails and letter, have gone unheeded,’ Judy said.
- Read more: What went wrong with Booking.com?
Stopping accommodation scams
New duties under the Online Safety Act require platforms to do more to prevent user-generated fraud such as this (among other kinds of illegal content) on their sites.
Which? believes Booking.com could reduce fraud on its site by introducing identity checks for hosts, making two-factor authentication mandatory for all users and banning the use of external links in Booking.com messages.
Booking.com said it takes the verification of listings seriously and it has multiple controls in place to ensure instances such as this don’t occur. It confirmed the property has been removed and it has given a full refund, plus the remaining amount, which it said was due to bank charges and exchange rates.
Stay safe from scams
Accommodation scams aren't always easy to spot and, in some cases, they can be incredibly convincing. If in any doubt, don't book it and don't part with any money.
To avoid scams when booking accommodation, you should:
- be extremely wary of deals that are outrageously 'good', as this is a typical tactic used by scammers to get your attention
- always inspect the reviews, both good and bad, and make sure you look at the most recent reviews, not just those the platform has deemed the most relevant
- never pay by bank transfer – always use the platform's payment systems, and ideally a credit card, to benefit from additional protections under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act
- be suspicious of further requests for verifying or updating card details after you've booked. Booking.com says it will never ask for payment details via email, chat message, text or phone.
Report scam listings to the platform and Action Fraud. If you live in Scotland, you can report a scam to the police by calling 101.
