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Credit card scammed after using booking.com

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Scotbot
Scotbot Posts: 1,535 Forumite
Seventh Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
edited 12 May at 4:09PM in Credit cards
I made 2 hotel bookings via booking.com last week. Both were pay later  bookings. An hour after my bank contacted me to  say suspicious transactions had been made on my card. One was £0 from Data Trans AG based in Zurich.  The hotels were in Spain and booking.com is based in Amsterdam.

I have no idea who Data Trans AG are and I got no response from booking. Com when I queried the transaction so my card was cancelled by the bank. I then cancelled the bookings as the card details are no longer valid

Any idea how this can have happened and how do I rebook the hotels safely? I was at home using my own broadband via wifi
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Comments

  • Voyager2002
    Voyager2002 Posts: 16,235 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    A transaction for no money sounds like an authorisation, quite probably by the owner of the hotels.
  • Scotbot
    Scotbot Posts: 1,535 Forumite
    Seventh Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    A transaction for no money sounds like an authorisation, quite probably by the owner of the hotels.
    I emailed the hotels to ask if they had made the transaction but received no reply. Surely  the transaction should have the name of the hotel if they had done it or at least been from a Spanish account 
  • flaneurs_lobster
    flaneurs_lobster Posts: 6,447 Forumite
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    These suspicious transactions, did any of them actually attempt to take a payment other than £0? Could they be dummy transactions to verify the card?

    Datatrans AG is a provider of payment systems for eCommerce.
  • Olinda99
    Olinda99 Posts: 2,042 Forumite
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    As above - the £0 transactions are to verify the card is real, active etc
  • Scotbot
    Scotbot Posts: 1,535 Forumite
    Seventh Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 12 May at 4:27PM
    Olinda99 said:
    As above - the £0 transactions are to verify the card is real, active etc
    But how do I know it's genuine? Scammers routinely do £0 transactions to verify if cards are active. Neither booking. Com nor the hotels confirmed the transactions

    The fact that I received several phishing texts afterwards makes me think it was not genuine 
  • flaneurs_lobster
    flaneurs_lobster Posts: 6,447 Forumite
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    Scotbot said:

    Scammers routinely do £0 transactions to verify if cards are active.
    The fact that I received several phishing texts afterwards makes me think it was not genuine 
    Really? I would have thought that scammers would be doing a "smash & grab" for a decent wedge rather than warning you in advance of their intentions.

    But those dodgy texts afterwards would make me wary too.
  • Olinda99
    Olinda99 Posts: 2,042 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Third Anniversary Name Dropper
    I have never had a scammer do a routine £0 credit card transaction - maybe I have just been lucky.
  • Scotbot
    Scotbot Posts: 1,535 Forumite
    Seventh Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Olinda99 said:
    As above - the £0 transactions are to verify the card is real, active etc
    In which case the name on the transaction should be booking.com or the hotel
  • Voyager2002
    Voyager2002 Posts: 16,235 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Scotbot said:
    A transaction for no money sounds like an authorisation, quite probably by the owner of the hotels.
    I emailed the hotels to ask if they had made the transaction but received no reply. Surely  the transaction should have the name of the hotel if they had done it or at least been from a Spanish account 

    The hotels would not have known: the owner of the hotels might be anywhere, and an intermediary company might have bought a block of rooms from the owner to resell and was now verifying that they could collect payment if you failed to pay as scheduled.

    Or, of course,. it might have been a scammer.
  • marcia_
    marcia_ Posts: 3,396 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
     Last night i had s £0.01 transaction on my card which my bank had already informed me was compromised. They had already mailed a new card. On ringing the bank they said there were multiple attempts after the penny one went through that they stopped. Its a test to see if the card is active. 
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