We have featured the stories of several readers’ difficulties with booking.com in recent times, with people contacting us to say that bookings they made on the platform had vanished into the mist, leaving them with nowhere to stay and struggling to get money back from the website.
But this story is from a landlord who was less than pleased when she found that the property she was renting out to long-term tenants had been listed on the platform without her permission and apparently used to con innocent tourists out of hundreds and sometimes thousands of euro.
What upset her even more than that was how booking.com handled her complaint.
Earlier this year Poppy Wang listed a house she owns in Santry on daft.ie and – given the state of the Irish housing market generally and the rental sector specifically – had no problem finding tenants.
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Within just a few days rental contracts were signed and new people had moved into the house.
But then activity around the house took a sinister turn, as it was used as bait in an accommodation scam, Wang says.
The first sign that something was amiss came earlier this month when people started calling to the house with booking confirmations for short stays that had been sent to them through the booking.com platform.
She says it now seems clear that the property had been listed “by an unknown person as short-term accommodation” and she stresses that neither she nor her new tenants “have ever authorised the property to be advertised or used in this way”.
The first unexpected visitor arrived on September 8th, she says.
“They knocked on the door expecting to check into accommodation they had booked through booking.com [and] since then, people have continued to arrive at the property on an almost daily basis with [fake] reservations.”
So concerned was Wang that she installed CCTV at the front door and says she is “now repeatedly seeing people arriving at the house, some with luggage, believing that they have booked legitimate accommodation. When they discover that the address is actually an occupied private residence and that there is no accommodation waiting for them, they are understandably shocked, distressed and extremely disappointed.”
She says some of the impacted visitors have shown her their Booking.com reservation confirmations which “direct them to this address”.
Confused as to what was happening, Wang went on to the platform and made a reservation for the home she owns. “After making the reservation, the booking information provided to me also directed me to the same genuine residential address.”
She says she first reported the fraudulent listing to Booking.com through its online reporting system.
“We have subsequently contacted Booking.com repeatedly. During one telephone call, customer service said the matter would be transferred to the relevant department, but the call was disconnected during the transfer,” she writes.
She adds that five days passed with “no meaningful resolution” and she only made contact with Pricewatch almost a week after the first person with a bogus booking arrived at the house.
“Meanwhile, more people continue to arrive at the house,” she says.
She says she believes the story raises “serious questions about the safeguards used by major booking platforms and what happens when a genuine residential address is fraudulently used to sell accommodation”.
She says she has also contacted the Garda and “explained that an unknown person was using a genuine residential property to obtain accommodation bookings and that members of the public were repeatedly arriving at the property”.
She says she was told that “the people who had actually been financially defrauded would need to report the matter themselves. This has left us in an extraordinary situation. The property owner cannot get the fraudulent accommodation removed. The legitimate tenants have strangers arriving at their home. Tourists continue to book accommodation that does not exist. The Gardaí have told us the financially defrauded guests need to make the complaint, and Booking.com has so far failed to stop the listing.”
[ Booking.com scams are on the rise: Here’s how to avoid themOpens in new window ]
Wang says that every day that the listing remains live “creates the possibility of further victims”.
She points out that there is also “a significant safety concern. The tenants do not know who will arrive at their door next or at what time. At the same time, the people arriving are themselves victims – many have travelled to Dublin believing that they have somewhere to stay, only to discover at the door that they may have been scammed.”
She asks how it is possible for someone to list “an occupied private residential property on a major accommodation platform without the owner’s permission? What verification is carried out before such a property is allowed to accept bookings? And once the genuine owner reports that the listing is fraudulent, why can it apparently remain available for days while further consumers continue to book it?”
Before we go on, it might be worth highlighting a story that made headlines in recent weeks.
This summer one of Europe’s leading consumer watchdogs was able to list 10 Downing St as a holiday rental on booking.com and accept payments from people keen to stay in the UK prime minister’s home.
Which? Travel said the exercise exposed “glaring gaps” in the online portal’s security, despite its claims that it uses advanced AI and multiple security controls to combat fraudulent listings.
The magazine said it set up the fake listing in minutes and noted that under booking.com’s own policies, hosts are not required to provide photo ID or proof of ownership until three months after a listing goes live.
“If Booking.com’s so-called sophisticated AI systems can’t spot that 10 Downing Street is not a holiday rental, then it’s no wonder scammers can exploit the platform so easily,” said Which? Travel editor Rory Boland at the time.
A spokeswoman for booking.com told The Irish Times in early September that the “limited test does not reflect the experience of millions of listings and reviews on our platform”. She added that the property added by Which? “was not ‘live’ or visible to customers during the period referenced, and, as the property was closed, some automatic fraud controls were not triggered”.
Anyways, back to Poppy Wang.
We contacted booking.com and in an initial statement the platform simply said that “when a property chooses to list on Booking.com they must agree to our terms and conditions, which includes keeping their room availability up to date. If an accommodation partner wants to end their agreement or remove their listing, we have simple processes and clear guidance to help them do this. We can confirm this property is closed on our platform.”
Pricewatch pointed out that the statement did not address how the “property was listed without the owner’s consent with the intention of defrauding members of the public”.
We also asked if booking.com accepted that fraudulent activity is commonplace on its platform and asked what measures it has to protect consumers.
In response all it said was: “The property wasn’t listed fraudulently.”
So we went back to Wang, as the owner, but she was adamant that it was listed fraudulently.
“I have never listed the property on Booking.com or authorised anyone to list it there, she insists. “I have never authorised the property to be used for short-term accommodation, tourist accommodation, hostel accommodation or any form of Booking.com accommodation. I have never authorised any person or company to create a Booking.com listing for this address.”
I find this particularly difficult to understand given that I am the property owner and have confirmed that I have never authorised this property to be listed on Booking.com
— Poppy Wang
She is, she adds, “extremely surprised by Booking.com’s statement that “the property wasn’t listed fraudulently. I cannot see how that statement can be reconciled with what actually happened. The person who created the Booking.com listing had no permission from me, as the property owner, to offer accommodation at this address. More importantly, this was not simply a listing containing an incorrect address. Real Booking.com customers made reservations and were subsequently given the address of my occupied residential property as their accommodation address. They then physically arrived at the house expecting to check in.
She says that if Booking.com maintains that the property wasn’t listed fraudulently she would “be very interested to understand who they believe was authorised to list my property, what evidence of authority that person provided, and what verification Booking.com carried out before allowing reservations to be taken for my address.”
So we went back to booking.com and put all this to the company.
We heard nothing back from the platform but did hear more from Wang.
She sent us the response from Booking.com regarding the formal report that was submitted about the listing.
In that the platform said that after an investigation into the report Wang sent, “it does not contain sufficient information for us to be able to confirm that the listing identified in your notice is offered illegally or that it is in breach of our Terms and Conditions”.
The company said that as a result it had closed the matter.
“I find this particularly difficult to understand given that I am the property owner and have confirmed that I have never authorised this property to be listed on Booking.com or used for any form of short-term accommodation,” she says.
