Booking.com scam: Tourists descend on north London private home

Image source, Booking.com

A woman in north London says she feels like a victim after a lot of tourists showed up at her home.

In July, travellers from Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and Los Angeles came to the home of the person who is not being named.

She said it was a scam and turned them away.

Her home was removed from the firm's website.

On July 4th, she was surprised by visitors to her home.

A person knocked on my door. I opened it and it was a tired woman from Hong Kong, her daughter at the end of the gate, with hundreds of cases, it seemed to me that they had just arrived from the airport.

They booked my house with Booking.com.

I told him that it was not on Booking.com. This house has never been let go by me.

I told her that she would have to return to them. There's a misunderstanding.

Several people knocked on my door and said they had booked my house with Booking.com.

"They came from all over the world: Australians who'd just arrived, there were some people from Saudi Arabia, some people from the north of England."

The first of about 100 people who thought they had reserved the property through the website arrived there between 4 and 29 July.

The listing on Booking.com was pulled six days after it was reported that droves of people were going to her house.

There were 23 groups of people at her house.

Someone used my address and it was a scam. I was so sorry for the people who knocked on my door. I could not do anything to get them back.

I'm very concerned about it. Maybe one day we'll get some people knocking on the door who are aggressive, but they're very nice people. I feel like I'm in danger.

Image source, Getty Images

There was a listing for her address on the website but the pictures were from a different property and had been copied from a legitimate website.

Two tourists, including a mother and daughter, came to stay at the home of a friend.

They were going to attend the Lady Gaga concert at the Spurs stadium.

Ms Duckenfield found the flat on Booking.com.

She asked the status of the property on the morning of arrival and was told it would be fine.

Ms Duckenfield will never use them again.

Booking.com takes safety and security very seriously and every week they facilitate millions of stays with no problems.

"SCAMs are a battle many industries are facing against unscrupulous fraudsters, and it is something we are tackling head on."

"We can confirm that this property has been removed from our site and all customers are being contacted by a member of our customer service team to apologize and offer any support required in relation to refunds, relocations and additional fees, as well as extending our apologies to the homeowner."

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