Travel planning now happens almost entirely on a screen, and the fraudsters have moved there too. The person who suffers most is the one who reacts hastily to a cheap price. Online booking is not dangerous in itself; it simply calls for a few habits of checking. Below I have written those habits and the only payment method that gets money back.
The most common schemes in online booking
The first scheme is a fake hotel site. It comes up as an advertisement in the search results, the design resembles a well-known platform, and the name in the address bar is written with one letter different. You pay, no confirmation comes, or it does come but when you reach the hotel it turns out there is no booking.
The second scheme arrives by letter. A few hours after making a real booking you receive an email headed “confirm your payment” and the link in it leads to a fake payment page. The third scheme happens in private adverts: a non-existent flat is offered for rent and a transfer is demanded in advance.
How to check a site is genuine
| The address bar | Read the name letter by letter, look for extra hyphens and letters |
| Contact details | The company name, address and telephone must be shown |
| The payment page | There should be a redirect to the bank page and a confirmation code |
| Reviews | Not the site’s own reviews but outside sources |
The padlock symbol in the address bar is not a guarantee of safety; any site can obtain it. The real check is the name and the company details. The simplest step, though, is to telephone the hotel itself and ask whether the booking appears in their system; that takes two minutes. When you take the hotel from a large booking platform, both the confirmation and the cancellation are managed from one place. When searching for flights and hotels, using well-known sales platforms reduces the risk by itself.
Read more: Choosing a hotel: the district, the rating, hidden costs and cancellation terms
Payment rules for online booking
Pay only by bank card. With a card payment there is the possibility of using the dispute procedure and claiming the money back; with a direct transfer or cryptocurrency there is no such possibility. Paying by card may look slightly more expensive, but that difference is like an insurance premium.
Where possible, open a separate virtual card for the trip and transfer only the amount you need onto it. That way, even if the card details leak, the loss is limited. Do not pay on a public wireless network; switch to mobile internet, because on an open network the data can be intercepted.
What to do if something goes wrong
Telephone the bank at once and start the procedure for disputing the transaction; the hours matter here. Then gather the screenshots, the correspondence and the payment receipt into one folder, because all of it will be needed as evidence. Report the fake site to the search engine and the platform.
If the amount is large, make a statement to the police, as in many cases that document is required in the bank’s procedure. Such schemes cross borders, so a result does not come quickly, but the claim is registered. Information about types of online fraud is published on the Europol site.
In brief
Read the address letter by letter, telephone the hotel to confirm the booking, pay only by card, do not pay on a public network. Go to the site itself rather than to links in a letter, and if something goes wrong make the first call to the bank. To build your travel plan safely, fill in the application form.
Note: bank procedures and deadlines vary by bank, so ask your own bank about the specific terms.
