With the increase of travelling worldwide, cybercriminals look for new ways how to steal our money and data. Make sure you are aware of the most common methods to prevent your next holidays from becoming an unpleasant experience.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
Until now we were asked, mostly by our banks, to be cautious with messages received via email, SMS (text messages), as well as not to provide any details over the phone when we are being contacted by anyone. Among those recommendations we can find:
do not click on any links or QR codes that are sent to you (e.g. by SMS, e-mail, instant messaging such as Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp) - often the scammer wants to direct you to a fake site to collect data from you,
do not provide any personal data, including any logins or passwords,
do not give out bank cards data,
do not install any applications on your phone or computer, if requested (usually this software takes control of your device),
do not act under time pressure. Take your time to rethink before doing anything.
Keep in mind that criminals may know some of your details, such as name, surname, phone number... recently we hear a lot about data breaches when hackers get our data from service providers we use, such as Yahoo (2013), Facebook (2019), LinkedIn (2021)...
This all applies to every part of our life and services we use, including when booking your next holidays. However, nowadays criminals go a few steps further...
BE AWARE OF BOOKING PLATFORMS
It has been noted that recently criminals are more active with booking platforms, such as Booking, Expedia etc. and they manage to act as the accommodation (hotel, hostel, private host place) when communicating with you. This means that you need to be even more careful with your holiday planning.
Criminals firstly get access to the booking platform log-in details of the accommodation (usually using the methods which we shared with you above) - even if you are cautious with emails and messages which you receive, the staff of the accommodation, when not well trained, may not.
Having the access, criminals contact Guests as the accommodation (via email or even official booking platform chat (!)), usually trying to:
inform you that your stay (with exact, correct dates) is not yet confirmed and in order to confirm it, you need to share your bank card details. Sometimes it is supposed to be done by a verification payment through a dedicated website,
inform you that the payment didn't go through and you need to pay one more time (always check with your bank account if payments were made successfully).
Keep in mind that when making a reservation for example with Booking, you always provide your bank card details directly to Booking. Booking later verifies the card and if it fails verification (because, for example, you gave details of disposable, one-time-use card), Booking will send you a notification that you need to update the card details, otherwise your reservation may be cancelled by the accommodation. This request is genuine. In order to be sure that Booking will not ask you to update your card details (and therefore be sure that it's not a scam), always make reservations with "normal" card (physical or virtual).
WHAT TO PAY ATTENTION TO
As you realised, there are plenty of ways how cybercriminals try to fool us. What we recommend is:
never act under pressure. Take your time to think before doing anything, double check if information which you received comes from the original source. If not sure, contact directly support of your booking platform,
pay attention to any mistakes, with details of your stay as well as grammar mistakes. Keep in mind that nowadays with Artificial Intelligence, criminals are able to compose very convincing messages - you need to be more careful than ever,
think twice before clicking on any link or QR code received - there is a high chance that you will lose access to your device or hackers will "listen to it" - they will gather all information which goes through your phone (including passwords which you enter when logging in to different services),
before you decide to provide your card details, investigate if there is a reason for it and how you can do it in a secure way.
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
As you can see, there is quite a lot to take into consideration when booking your next holidays in a safe and peace-in-mind way. On top of all, you may also find non-existent accommodation options on various booking platforms. The aim of those is only to get money from you and when you arrive you may find out that there is no such a place or it's not to be rented. Before choosing any accommodation you need to do the "homework" and research about it - check how many reviews the place has on different platforms (Google Maps, TripAdvisor, etc.) and if they are authentic, check if accommodation place runs Facebook or Instagram account (and for how long) as well as if they are active there (posts, stories, interaction with followers) and... don't hesitate to contact the place - in most cases you can also get a lower price when booking directly, rather than through any booking platform.
Reserve a room directly on our website and enjoy the best deal possible!
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