A week prior to the first day of our stay at an apartment in Italy, I received a phone call purporting to tell me that there was a suspected fraudulent payment from my account. I said no it wasn’t fraudulent. It was due to be paid a week before arrival. The caller asked me for my date of birth which I unwisely supplied. However, happily the payment for the booking was made to the Italian apartment as agreed with Booking.com (and we later arrived at the hotel with no problem).

Immediately after the phone call, I checked the number of the caller, I realised it was a scam. I called my bank, Booking.com and Action Fraud. I was told to call my bank again the next day. They told me that three attempted payments from my account had been made the previous evening. As they were from abroad, the bank declined the payments. I had inevitably to forfeit the relevant debit card! A small price to pay.

I am not out of pocket, but it is clear that there had been a data breach, probably somewhere between Booking.com and the Italian apartment. I did not provide the caller with any other bank details, e.g card number, etc. They obviously had my phone number.

Booking.com told me they would look into the matter and get back to me. Nothing yet, nearly two weeks later.

From my bank and other sources, it appears there have been numerous similar problems with Booking.com. Not quite like this one!