ScamAlert

Just a heads up for anyone with an upcoming Princess cruise. I received a letter in the mail asking for a $250 “final payment” and telling me to scan a QR code to pay. It looked very legit at first glance. Had my name, address, cruise dates, printed on thick, official-looking...

Just a warning for anyone traveling solo or booking hostels. I’m heading to Amsterdam and got a pretty convincing email saying I needed to make a payment to secure my hostel spot, even though I’d already paid in full. For a second it had me second guessing myself like wait, did...

My boyfriend and I are booking a Paris trip later this year and found a place on Booking.com called Chez Sophie. Total price is £30 for five nights, which feels completely unreal. The reviews actually look pretty normal, not overly glowing or obviously fake. The price only seems...

I’m a pretty seasoned traveler, and I’ve never experienced harassment and scamming on this level anywhere else. I honestly thought not looking like a stereotypical tourist might help. It didn’t. If you don’t like constant interaction, pressure, or confrontation, this is not the...

Just a warning for anyone cruising soon. If you ever see this number claiming to be cruise line customer service: +1 (888) 645-7943, don’t call it. Always use the number directly from your cruise line’s official website. They’ll ask for your booking number and then say you owe...

Posting this as a warning. My Alaska Airlines account was hacked this morning. I got an alert saying the email and phone number on my account were changed. That wasn’t me. The problem is once the email is changed, password resets only go to the new email, so I was instantly...

Just a heads up for anyone using Booking.com. There’s another WhatsApp phishing scam making the rounds trying to steal credit card info. You get a message saying you need to confirm your reservation and it sends you to a fake site that looks legit enough to fool people. It’s not...

A friend booked a 2BR apartment on Booking.com, non-refundable. After booking, the host messaged him on Booking and then on WhatsApp asking him to cancel, saying the price was listed wrong and that they’d send the money back. That immediately felt off to me. If the host made a...

A friend tried booking through a site called Hopegoo after Google Flights showed it as $50 cheaper than Alaska Airlines. Big mistake. A few days before the trip, Alaska called to say the ticket was fraudulently booked using stolen miles. Apparently these shady sites hack mileage...

My grandmother keeps running into the same issue over and over. Her Air France reservations have been “intervened by a third party” who contacted her and tried to get her to pay to “maintain” the booking. What’s really concerning is that now she says every time she tries to call...

Just a heads up for anyone using Booking.com. I’ve booked through them for years without issues, but ran into something sketchy today. I booked a hotel in Norway about a month ago. Today I got a WhatsApp message saying I needed to “re confirm” my booking within 24 hours or it...

Booked what I thought was a normal hotel room in London, 189 pounds a night, confirmation clearly showed Zedwell Piccadilly and a standard room. Show up and the hotel can’t find my reservation at all. Turns out Trivago actually booked me into their hostel location down the...

This was on a graveyard shift with a new valet. Our garage used to have lobby elevator access, valet on the top two levels, and self-parking on 3–5. Some guy rode the elevator to 3, walked up to the valet levels, wrote down the ticket number of the BMW he wanted, then went to...

My Bristol flight got canceled and they moved me to Luton for an early flight, so I grabbed a guest house on Booking.com that literally had “Luton Airport” in the name. Listing said check-in was open until midnight. Right after booking, they messaged asking my arrival time, then...

Bought the Multi Pass for my family at Disneyland this morning101 dollars for the three of us and we’ve only been able to use it once. We got into the park around 10am and everything was already booked out until late afternoon. Used it on Thunder Mountain and the standby line...

Used my Alaska card for the first time to book a ticket over the phone, and about a week later I get a fraud alert for some random Eastern Europe attempt… and then an MLBShop charge that actually went through. The card has literally never been used anywhere else. Feels a little...

Booked a hotel through Desk Reservation and the agent said it was 2550 plus a 17.99 transaction fee. I told her I might need to cancel if my work schedule changed. She said the fee was non-refundable. Cool, fine. Work schedule changed an hour later, I called back, they said “no...

I stay at tons of IHG places for work, mostly Holiday Inn Express, and I always use credit card authorization forms. And for the second time this year, I’ve ended up with random food charges in a totally different city right after a stay. This card is literally only used for...

Just got hit with a nasty scam attempt. Searched Google for Delta’s customer service number (yeah, I know…) and it showed +1-855-564-8075. Called it and an Indian-sounding guy with tons of static picked up. He starts asking for DOB, credit card info, all to “rebook my suspended...