Last month a reader called Tom was trying to book a family holiday to Ibiza and went in search of a private villa. He found a property he liked the look of on booking.com and sent a booking inquiry. “The advert looked legitimate albeit it was new to the website,” he says. “The property had a licence number and score out of 10 which the website said was verified from external reviews. After 24 hours the inquiry expired.”
Tom’s wife then tried to make a booking and the same thing happened.
“Within the ad was an email address to contact the host directly, which I did. Several emails were exchanged and the host explained that they were having trouble with the booking.com calendar. They looked for more details of our party which came as no surprise as the property had a no hens/no stag stipulation on the ad.”
Tom says he then received an invitation to a booking page “which bore all the hallmarks of the actual website. There was a link to an invoice which contained a booking…
