Booking .com Hack

Deanowj

I have a hotel booked in December, Hampton by Hilton through Booking.com. On the 21st of November I received an email from Hampton by Hilton through the Booking.com portal stating my booking could be cancelled because of an error during the verification process. I am always suspicious of emails like this. So went to my Booking.com account and the same message was there, so I thought it had to be legit, I completed the verification process with my card details , this failed so I completed it again. When this also failed I became suspicious, checked my bank account and sums totalling over £500 had been taken from my account. I immediately contacted my bank and because the transactions were still pending they could cancel them easily. So no money lost. I also contacted Hampton by Hilton and Booking.com. The response was laughable both trying to blame each other, the following morning I had emails from both parties virtually identical, stating the others system had been hacked the previous night and it was nothing to do with them. Doing some quick research this has been going on for some time with Booking.com , The Guardian, The Daily Mirror and The Mail have all done articles in October 2023 accusing booking .com of having their system compromised and not alerting their customers. So be aware I like to think I'm pretty savvy, these emails are not obvious they have all your booking details , no spelling mistakes or suspect email addresses and they originate from Booking.com? I have now cancelled my future Booking with Booking.com and will be cancelling my account.

BJV

Thankfully, because you acted quickly you did not lose anything.

Unfortunately, I don't think you will be the only one that that target. Typical that they both blame each other.!

Olinda99

unfortunately banks cannot cancel pending transactions

mark_cycling00

It seems that the hackers use phishing to gain access to the hotel's booking.com account. Ie. The login that hotel staff would use to view their bookings, update prices etc.

They get customer data via this account, send emails and trick you into giving payment details on a spoofed website.

So booking.com are somewhat correct that they haven't been hacked (like the electoral commission was) 
But the hotel chain claim that booking.com probably didn't do enough to secure their accounts. Maybe no 2factor authentication, who knows 

We can be sure if two things...
1. Booking.com will fix their stuff very quickly with all the bad publicity
2. Other reservation companies probably have the same security problems..