“It said my room booking was going to be cancelled. The link provided looked like the genuine Booking.com site I’d used many times before to make payments,” said Brown.
Sue Brown received a fake email purporting to be from the Shoreline Hotel Waikiki after she booked on Booking.com. Supplied
It was only after sharing her credit-card information that she began to suspect foul play; a subsequent phone call to her sister, who had similar bookings and had also been targeted with the same message request, confirmed her worst suspicions.
“I realised then I’d been scammed, and I felt like an idiot as it had never happened to me before,” she said.
Brown described the con as a “very sophisticated” operation. “Somehow the scammers must have gained access to the hotel’s email. I immediately froze my credit card and I contacted the hotel.”
Brown also notified Booking.com, who said their fraud team would be in touch. At the time of writing, she is yet to hear from the…
