Six ‘red flag’ signs of hotel phishing scams have been revealed, to help protect Brits from being conned out of their money. With the summer holidays just on the horizon, hotels across the UK are expected to receive a significant boost in bookings.
However, with the high demand for rooms comes plenty of scammers looking to take advantage of unsuspecting customers. To help Brits avoid being scammed when booking their next hotel stay, Joe Lytwyn, senior partnerships manager at thimbl. credit card, has outlined six red flag signs of hotel phishing scams that everyone should be aware of.
Joe said: “Unfortunately, scamming remains to be a big problem in the UK, where Brits are tricked into providing sensitive information such as credit card details and account passwords. We expect to see a rise in hotel bookings over the next few months due to summer staycations, meaning that we could also expect to see an increase in hotel phishing scams.
“With the hotel industry often being a key target for scammers, and their methods of scamming becoming more and more sophisticated, it helps to know exactly what signs to look out for so that you don’t fall victim to these nasty schemes when making a hotel reservation.”
Here's what Joe says to look out for when booking:
Typos and grammatical errors
“If you receive an email about your hotel booking that is difficult to read and makes very little sense grammatically, this is a pretty good indication that you may be being scammed. Legitimate company emails will generally be written to a professional standard before being sent out to established or potential customers.
"Phishing emails, on the other hand, are typically riddled with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and poor writing. If you notice one too many typos, it may be a good idea to contact the hotel directly to question the email’s authenticity.”
Requests for financial and personal information
“Personal and financial details are a gold mine for scammers, allowing them to access all sorts of sensitive and valuable information that could ultimately lead to you losing an awful lot of money. A legitimate hotel would only ask for financial information such as your credit card details through a secure online portal - where you have logged into your hotel account - or over the phone if you are paying a holding fee, deposit, or settling the balance after paying a deposit.
“Never hand over any personal information such as login details and make sure that any sensitive information is delivered either through the hotel’s official website or at the physical venue to avoid any nasty surprises.”
Urgent demands and false promises
“Scammers often like to use urgent or exclamatory language to get their victims’ attention. This is a scare tactic used to incite panic and fear into the recipient and potentially provoke them to make hasty decisions such as clicking an untrustworthy link or inputting sensitive information without much thought.
“Phrases such as ‘act now’ or ‘immediate attention required’ are telltale signs that everything may not be quite as it seems. They may also make bold statements, for example, telling you that you’ve been randomly selected to win a prize such as a discount, or a gift card towards your booking. As exciting as these promises may sound, they are usually too good to be true.
“False warnings of outstanding payments or incorrect contact details are also very common in phishing scams and are all methods of manipulating someone to send over sensitive or personal information. If you’re unsure whether a request is genuine, contact the hotel directly using the official contact details listed on their website.”
Unsolicited contact
“Whether you like them or hate them, marketing emails are a staple of most people’s inboxes. However, if you don’t recognise the company that is attempting to make contact with you, then they’re probably not supposed to be communicating with you in the first place.”
“Unsolicited contact can be made over the phone too, through suspicious texts and unwanted phone calls, and can be hard to avoid as new numbers are constantly popping up to target and harass people. As a general rule, if you’re not expecting to be contacted by a particular hotel or haven’t signed up for any marketing subscriptions, don’t interact with them.”
Suspicious links
“One of the most common ways that people fall for phishing scams is by clicking on malicious links sent to them by scammers posing as legitimate companies. If a hotel contacts you and requests that you click on a specific link to complete a task, double-check that this link will direct you to the company’s official website.
“Phishing scammers will often link out to a spoofed website of the official hotel and trick you into filling in financial information in order to extract money from your account. These links could also contain malware that has the ability to download harmful material onto your device and steal sensitive information without your consent.
“Suspicious links can be virtually identical to a legitimate link, with only minor differences in the URL. Be vigilant and take the time to carefully inspect it before clicking on it to make sure it’s the real deal.”
Untrustworthy sender email
“Like a website URL, the sender’s email is a key piece of information to determine whether the company in contact with you is authentic. Scammers may imitate the name of the company within the email address, but a fake address will often contain a mix of numbers and uppercase or lowercase letters that will differentiate it from its legitimate counterpart. Keep an eye on the sender’s address and do your research into the hotel’s contact information to ascertain whether it could have come from any of their official accounts.”
