INFORMATION FOR MEMBERS

It seems timely, to send out a reminder to all members regarding the email booking scam that has been circulating throughout the industry for over 2 years now.
Almost every property across Australia and New Zealand has received the email booking request at some stage, and I would expect that it would run to a quite number of them. I know many of you receive them on a daily basis, and delete them or forward them to me.
However, there are also many properties who have not passed the information on to their staff members who may check the email system, and unsuspectingly reply to the emails. This action then opens the dialogue with the scammers, and in a lot of instances, continues to the point where the scammers send credit card details and the transaction is normally picked up as a suspect one, when the card is used, or fails to work.
The ramifications of responding to these emails are many, and some are listed here.
Whenever one of these emails is responded to, your email address goes onto what is called a “suckers list” and is sold, auctioned or bartered with other scammers, for them to use.
The time taken to respond to these emails impacts upon efficient office practices, and if the booking is not too far away in time, the possibility that the rooms that have been reserved and not ever going to be used, could have been sold to paying guests.
If the cards get processed, you face the charge back process and associated fee’s, and IF the request to send funds overseas is actually carried out, you will lose all the funds transacted from the card, plus any you have already spent.
Email is an accepted way of doing business, and has also grown to be an excellent method in the delivery of fraudulent activity.
Card not Present Transactions are the fastest growing type of Card Fraud in Australia and the Accommodation Industry is in the top 5 categories. All banks have a ZERO floor limit for CNP Transactions, which means that every booking that you take and the card is not there, you need to get an authorisation prior to use. Consult your bank or Merchant agreement for your liabilities regarding CNP’s.
Our advice for accepting email bookings is to be careful. Direct enquiries to your own website, your office fax or if you prefer, one of your other recognised booking services, or just ignore it. If it is a scam, they will not contact you again.
Some points for identifying suspect Scams are: Email Address will always be from a free email service, eg yahoo, hotmail, gmail;  there will be never a location specified eg, ‘coming to country’ or ‘coming to your area’ or ‘at your place’ ;  spelling is all over the place, although some are getting better and scenarios getting a bit more realistic in some;  subject is normally ‘Reservation’ or ‘BOOKING ENQUIRY’ or ‘Booking Needed’. The names used vary now, and in some cases there are website addresses which are used to indicate legitimacy but are false.
If you have any questions or doubts about bookings, please contact us.