How to Spot Fake Hotel Booking Pages on Social Media
With travel season in full swing, it's the perfect time for family vacations and team-building trips. Unfortunately, it also means an increase in scams, especially when booking hotels and accommodations through social media.
I know from experience that setting up a resource for verified hotel and homestay pages is difficult because of fake reports and content theft.
So, let's talk about the tricks these scammers use to protect yourself and others! Share this page to help spread awareness.
Keep in mind that anyone can purchase page verification badges or followers. Don't rely solely on those indicators to determine authenticity.
Common Scams to Watch Out For
1. Fake Fanpages with Tempting Offers
Scammers create fake hotel or homestay pages using attractive photos and unrealistically low prices (like a five-star room for next to nothing).
Once you contact them, they'll ask you to transfer a deposit to a personal bank account.
After receiving the money, they might claim there was an "error" in the transfer and ask for an OTP code or more money to "complete the transaction."
Many victims lose their initial deposit and even more money from their bank accounts.
A common tactic is offering huge discounts with attractive combos to entice you. They'll use confusing characters in the booking code to trick you into making mistakes:
- Replacing "i" with a lowercase "l".
- Intermixing lowercase "l" and uppercase "L," making them look like the number 1 or "i."
- Placing the number 1 and lowercase "l" close together to resemble the number 1.
- Using the number 0 and uppercase letter "O" interchangeably.
- Putting "VV" together to look like "W."
- Using underscores "_" and dashes "-."
- Mixing up the letter B and number 8.
- Confusing the letter S with numbers 6 or 5.
- Similar-looking numbers like 7 and 1.
- Alternating uppercase and lowercase letters to make it hard to type.
The goal is to make you enter the code incorrectly so they can steal more money by claiming you need to pay fees or some automatic refund process.
They will often rush you by saying you need to copy the code and contact someone before transferring to make you feel like you need to transfer quickly.
2. Hacking Trustworthy Pages to Scam You
These scammers hack or buy Facebook pages with many followers and change the name to a popular hotel or homestay.
They then post promotions like "50% off" or "free voucher" to attract bookings and deposits.
Victims only realize the scam when they arrive and discover their booking doesn't exist.
3. Fake Booking Websites
Some scammers create fake websites that look almost identical to legitimate booking platforms like major booking sites.
Customers enter their credit card information to "confirm" the booking and lose money immediately.
How to Recognize and Avoid Scams
Double-check the fanpage or website's information and compare it to the contact info on Google Maps. Cross-reference the phone number.
- Check when the page was created, the admin's location. If it's located in India, Cambodia, Laos or another suspicious country, that's a red flag. Also, analyze the authenticity of the interactions.
- Read reviews from previous guests on reliable review websites.
- Call the hotel or homestay directly using the official phone number (find it on the official website).
- Avoid transferring deposits to personal accounts.
- Only pay through reputable platforms or verified business accounts, however, many alias names are being used with account numbers.
- Be suspicious of deals that seem too good to be true. Prices significantly lower than the market rate are often a sign of fraud.
- Never share OTP codes, credit card information, or personal banking details.
- When scanning QR codes, pay attention to the amount shown before sending. Some QR codes have pre-filled amounts, and if you enter your PIN, you could lose all your money. Pay close attention.
- To avoid having their account traced, scammers will sometimes send QR codes within an invoice. If you are given a QR code, ask for the full account number and do a Google search before sending money.
Here is an example of a scam where the number 0 in the room number 205 has been replaced with the letter O to trick users. A quick call to the hotel to verify the reservation would have prevented this loss.
Wishing you safe and happy travels!
