How to spot and avoid online hotel booking scams

How to avoid online hotel booking scams, frauds?

How to spot hotel booking scams on the internet when travelling?

How to avoid booking.com scams, Agoda.com scams?

How to protect yourself from online hotel booking scams when travelling? …

These are popular questions that many people wonder about while booking hotels online for their upcoming trips.

While writing about online booking scams, I happened to read some recent articles to alert tourists to many recently increasing online room booking scams for their trips to Dalat flower festival from 5-12 December 2024. Many tourists lose money because of booking hotels online through fake fanpages of famous hotels. I tried to answer a poll about online booking scams created by Vnexpress.net on 19 Nov 2024. It was surprising that during the starting day of  the poll on 19 Nov, nearly 30% of readers being a victim of online room scams. This means that online booking scams are nowadays increasing, and we should do somethings to avoid these scams.

Result of a poll for all readers of Vnexpress e-newpaper about online room booking scams collected on 19 Nov 2024.

Being a travel lover, I’ve booked hotels online so many times. I encountered 2 types of online booking scams.  The recent scam of booking hotels online which happened to me was at the end of January this year. Luckily, I didn’t lose my money, but I recognize that it was an extremely sophisticated booking scam, and people are able to easily spring a trap of intelligent scammers. That’s why I wrote this article to alert everyone to  types of online room booking scams  to spot and avoid and most importantly, no one lose money to scammers due to online travel booking scams anymore.

Spot types of online hotel booking scams and frauds to avoid

For me, there are some main kinds of scams and frauds when booking a hotel online as follows:

Booking.com scam and Agoda.com scam 

Booking.com scam and Agoda.com scam mean that criminals have first gained access to Booking.com/ Agoda.com accounts of some accommodation providers, then using them to send scam messages to guests, who have successful bookings, through the booking platform’s in-app chat function while posing as properties. The scammers often request to confirm payment information by clicking the link or providing information of credit card. Because they send phishing messages or emails on authentic private chat platform of the properties, guests lack vigilance and do as they request.

From that definition, it’s hard to recognize that type of scam when scammers or fraudsters impersonate the property owner or the hotel staff to send phishing messages or emails to guest of that properties for money transfer.

• Mechanism of booking.com scam or Agoda.com fraud to recognize fraud

In late 2023, security research firm Akamai uncovered an infostealer targeting hotels using Booking.com. I can describe the mechanism of Booking.com scam and Agoda.com scam under a map of 8 steps as follows:

From these above steps, we can see at step (7), if we don’t provide credit card information or if we don’t click any link from any message or email, we will not lose money. So,

• NEVER PROVIDE ANY INFORMATION OF A CREDIT CARD IF BE REQUESTED via email, message or by a phone call.
• NEVER CLICK ANY LINK from messages or emails sent by a person WHOM YOU HAVE NOT VERIFIED YET.

I met this phishing scam when I had a successfully prepaid booking at a hotel in Japan on Agoda.com in January this year. I had my hotel’s an private email and had some exchange emails and chatting via an authentic chatting app-in platform of Agoda. Everything was good until I received an urgent, long message from my hotel to request me to confirm my booking on an early morning. The message requested me to do as their instruction, otherwise  my booking will be cancelled.

I was surprised because I paid in advance for my booking. I wondered why they asked me such a strange question. I decided to send a message to the hotel via their private email to ask about that chat message in its legitimate app-in chat platform. They said it was not them; it was a spam. So, I ignored that message.

However, the scammers continued to send one more message to me even though I did not answer. I ignored them again. Luckily, I pre-paid for my booking. If my booking was paid later at the property. I maybe trust that message. Below are screenshots of these phishing scams that I encountered.

The first phishing email that I received through Agoda.com’s authentic in-app chatting platform, sent by scammers.

You can see from that phishing email; the scammers capitalized some important phrases to urge me to follow their instruction. In the phishing email, they did not mention the name of a hotel staff who was sending that email. For a real message from the hotel, they often sign their name or write their name at the end of the email or message. Here is the real email sent by the hotel as follows:

The staff of the hotel answered me to inform that the scam email was not sent by them, it was a spam email.

      The second phishing email I received from scammers via Agoda authentic in-app chatting platform.

“No record on the reservation at the hotel” scam

“No record on the reservation at the hotel” scams mean that guests book online a room/ many rooms paid in advance on a website or a social media platform. But when coming to their hotel, a hotel receptionist said there was no record of their bookings at that hotel. If guests book the hotel on Facebook fake fanpages, it means they will lose money because scammers block their contacts. For this “no record” scam, if guests book through famous accommodation websites such as Agoda and Booking, they sometimes can take their money back because Agoda and Booking hold their money before transferring to the properties.

My second bad experience with that “no record of my booking” fraud was last October and this April. Even though I didn’t lose money, it made me tired, worried, disappointed and it took me too much time to find another hotel at 8:30pm after a tiring, long- distance motorcycle riding day.

Specifically, the hotel that I booked online in Ha Giang on Agoda at that time was extremely cheap compared to the average price in that area. It was about 160.000 VND (= 6.7 USD) for a triple room including breakfast. I was surprised by that price, and I wondered a little bit, but I still booked that hotel because there are many good reviews with a high rated point. After arriving at the hotel, I showed my booking, but after checking on the system, the receptionist said there was no record of my booking even though I paid for it. They said they didn’t cooperate with Agoda some years ago, but they don’t know why their hotel still appears on that website for booking. The hotel was full at this time, and I could not book another room. Then, I immediately contacted Agoda customer service. Finally, they said they were sorry for that. They refunded my money and gave me a voucher for that excuse.

Book online a hotel that doesn’t exist/non-existent accommodation on agoda.com

This type of scam is often related to customers’ online bookings through untrusting, unknown websites or through fake fanpages of famous hotels or resorts on social media. Scammers often copy all real photos and real posts of famous hotels or resorts, then create their fake fanpages on Facebook, Instagram, … They provide rooms or tour services at cheap prices to attract customers. Besides, scammers often repeatedly run many advertising campaigns.

These things make customers hard to differentiate from the real fanpages of hotels and resorts. If there are customers contacting them to ask for rooms, tours information, room booking policies, …  The scammers enthusiastically support and consult the customers to make them fall into a trap. After reaching an agreement, the scammers often take a photo of a fake receipt or fake booking confirmation and force the customers to transfer money as an online travel booking deposit. After receiving money, they immediately stop customers from contacting them and remove all tracks. For customers, after transferring the deposit, customers call to the real hotel or resorts to check their booking. Then, they discovered that they lost money because the fanpage where they had booked online was fake.

A fake fanpage (on the right) is nearly similar a real fanpage (on the left) of Ana Mandara Cam Ranh (Photo: on the internet)

This type of scam is now very popular when there are many cases informed in Nha Trang city, Khanh Hoa province, Vietnam. According to reports of Nha Trang – Khanh Hoa tourism association, there are 16 cases of deposit money scam totaling 47 million dongs up to 11 November 2024. In June 2024, at The Cliff & Residences (Phu Hai, Phan Thiet city), three tourists of this resort lost their deposit money because of booking rooms online on its fake fanpage.

How to spot and avoid booking scams when booking hotels online?

When booking a hotel for your next trip, it’s sometimes very easy to recognize which scams or frauds are. But sometimes it’s hard to spot booking scams because of the sophisticated ways that scammers nowadays use to scam. Based on my experiences, here are some recognizable examples of scams and frauds to avoid as follows:

Signs of booking scams on the internet

On the left is a real fanpage of Alibu Resort Nha Trang, on the right is a fake one. (Photo: Phuong Linh)

Receiving an urgent email in the early morning to push to pay or confirm your booking

Scammers often send an email in the early morning, urgent push to pay or confirm your booking via a link through an authentic official message platform that you’ve successfully booked online before. It’s hard to recognize and neglect and you lack vigilance because the scam messages are sent through the official message platform of Agoda.com and Booking.com that you’ve chatted about before with your hotel owner or a hotel staff.

Some reasons they give to request you to confirm your payment, your reservation such as:

• Due to updated booking rules, we must additionally request a bank card confirmation to guarantee your arrival.
• Give a threatening message to cancel your reservation if you do not follow their instructions.
• Scammers send a link and request to confirm by SMS code => Booking.com or Agoda.com never ask to pay reservation via different flatform
• Often using words to push you to do an action with capitalization of these words, phrases such as IMMEDIATELY, IMPORTANT, PUSH, SMS, THIS MUST BE DONE FOR ALL GUESTS, EVEN IF YOU HAVE ALREADY PAID FOR YOUR BOOKING.
• In case you ‘ve already paid, you still receive that scam message, they will mention the following phrase to persuade that it’s compulsory for all guests and you must do as they mention: “THIS MUST BE DONE FOR ALL GUESTS, EVEN IF YOU HAVE ALREADY PAID FOR YOUR BOOKING”

The cheap price of a room/a tour

The price of hotel rooms is much cheaper than the average price in that district, in the same city or cheaper than the official hotel/resort websites.

Summarize some red flags to spot and avoid online booking scams

• Urgent notifications.
• A good promotion such as 30-50% discounts based on original price.
• 20% discounts in case of advance payment.
• Messages include a link to confirm or ask for personal or banking information.
• Enthusiastically support and consult room bookings, tours.
• Targeting 4-5-star hotels, resorts with beautiful views, a convenient location but cheap prices for booking rooms.

Some real examples of online room booking scams

Below are some of the articles on famous e-newspapers on the internet where the victims of these scams, frauds mentioned above shared their bad experiences when losing money while booking hotels online.

Booking.com making non exist reservations

Non-exist hotel

An article on The New York Times about scam of online hotel booking

A story of non-exist hotel due to online hotel booking scam on the New York Times

How to avoid online hotel booking scams?

Depending on where you book online a room on an accommodation provider website or on social media like Facebook fanpage…, there are some ways to avoid online booking scams, fraud or avoid losing your money.

Avoiding hotel online booking scams on Facebook fanpages

• Just book hotels on Facebook fanpage when you are totally sure 100 percent that’s its real official fanpage, or your friends have already successfully done their room booking there  and recommend it to you.
• DO NOT BELIEVE the number of followers on Facebook fanpage because these numbers can be easily created and fake.
• DO NOT BELIEVE the number of interaction of reviewers or visitors on the fanpage because these numbers can be fake. There are a service to create these virtual numbers, example: 1200 views, many comments, 1.500 or more followers… Everything can be fake.
• Before booking, try to find an official hotel website to contact and ask if they can give you its real fanpage and the price of the room, a tour that you are concerned about.
• Do not let you be attracted to the cheaper price too much than the average market price.
• Do not transfer money as your deposit for booking a room online on Facebook fanpage if you have not verified that fanpage is real or fake yet.

Avoid online hotel booking scams via accommodation websites

• Book a hotel on the internet via famous, prestige websites such as: Booking.com, Agoda.com, …
• Be suspicious if the prices of a hotel/ a resort are too cheap compared to the average price in the same district, in the same city.

• To avoid booking online a hotel with no records of your booking confirmation on a famous website, you should read Recent comments about that hotel to determine how long this hotel have guests to stay at. If there are recent comments from a guest, you can feel safe booking that hotel. If a recent comment was one year ago on the website, this can be guessed that the hotel has stopped cooperating with that website.

• Always ask the property to confirm after you successfully book a room.
• You can ask the hotel owner or the hotel staff some questions about booking, or anything you are concerned about before booking.
• When receiving an urgent email via Agoda.com /Booking.com’s official chatting platform to request to confirm or pay via a link or provide your Credit card information, NEVER DO IT or IGNORE THIS EMAIL.
• If you are not sure, you can use another method to contact the property such as via the hotel’s private email that you have contacted before or can make a call to confirm.

• If you really would like to book a room at that hotel on an unknown website, try to search on the internet to see if there is any information about that hotel/ that website and if there are any reviews, comments, feedback about that.

• Recheck the URL address of the website to be sure that you are visiting the official website.

In summary, recognizing signs of online travel booking scams, fraud is very important. I hope this article can help every travel lover can easily spot signs of all scams, phishing emails while booking online a hotel for upcoming trips. Then, you can avoid these scams and won’t lose money anymore.