Once you wrote to the scammers, they had your email address and used it — sending you an email dressed up to look like an official Booking.com message and from an address @confirmations-booking.com, which can look like a legitimate address if and the company says all its emails end in @booking.com.
Reading copies of the emails you forwarded to me, the broken English is also suspicious (“Your booking of a two-bedroom apartment with a view must be paid in full”), as are some of the account details with the Spanish bank BBVA. “Nyholm Peik”, has no online presence that I could find and the address attached to the account is that of Vanity, a London “gentleman’s club” whose license was suspended in early 2023.
In our subsequent communications, Sylvia, you asked if Booking.com had reported this apparent crime to the authorities or the bank. I asked the company, which said it was the customer’s responsibility to report fraud taking place outside of its platform, and BBVA, which declined to comment. Consumers should file such reports with the FBI’s Internet Complaint Center and their own bank.
I was curious if Airbnb and Vrbo do something different than Booking.com, so I got in touch.
Edith Morris, a spokeswoman for Vrbo, said the company is developing “a variety of sophisticated risk strategies and tools to monitor suspicious behavior on a 24×7 basis and to continually invest in our capabilities.” The company provides “fraudulent listing payment protection,” though that doesn’t necessarily cover a case where a guest sends money outside of the Vrbo platform.
Airbnb is rolling out a new verification process for properties, not hosts, and will use “a combination of advanced anti-fraud technology, artificial intelligence and human review to check authenticity,” according to a spokeswoman. He added that the first “verified” icons will soon appear on some listings in the United States, Canada, Australia, England and France.
