A mysterious scam leaves a hundred tourists without a hotel in the middle of Sant Jordi

BarcelonaA hundred tourists arrived in Barcelona last Tuesday night on a date as significant as Sant Jordi. They went to the hotel they had booked, the Standbyme, next to La Boqueria Market, through the Booking platform. But the reservation did not appear anywhere. One of the receptionists at this central hotel in the Catalan capital, Josefina, explained in statements to Efe that on Tuesday, around 8 p.m., they lost access to their Booking profile, coinciding with the massive arrival of people supposedly with reservations to stay in their rooms. The affected parties speak of a digital scam.

In fact, the platform, which assured this Wednesday that the hundred affected individuals have already been rehoused, suffered a cyberattack a few days ago and warned that there could be an increase in scams linked to its portal. Now, however, they emphasize that "there is no indication that this case is related to the independent incident reported last week." In statements to Efe, Booking stated that it had "worked closely" with the establishment to "support the affected clients," and highlighted that the situation "has already been resolved and the guests have been relocated."

Last Tuesday night, the hotel experienced a massive arrival of clients and they immediately contacted the platform. Initially, the response was that everything seemed to be working normally. However, there were problems with the hotel's account on the portal: "names of other people and from other countries appeared as if they were the owners." "They informed clients through an official email, which posed as us, that the reservation was confirmed, but that the payment could not be made due to an error and they sent them an email with a separate link to charge them separately," detailed the worker, who insisted on the idea that they had suffered identity theft.

Bookings 24 hours before Sant Jordi

One of the affected users, Estefanía, who traveled from Ponferrada to Barcelona "very happy and motivated", with the illusion of attending the Sant Jordi book signing, explains that she always makes her reservations through Booking, but following this situation she suspects that her profile "has been hacked". "I have lost my reservation, my profile and I have to call the bank to cancel the account. 24 hours before Sant Jordi, reservations are very complicated", she lamented.

A Colombian visitor, Viviana, agrees with this theory, arguing that the hotel has informed them that "their page has been hacked and they have multiple reservations in their accommodations", so they cannot receive them. Another affected tourist who comes from Italy, Cristina, says that she landed in the Catalan capital with the conviction of having made a reservation through the hotel's official profile, but when she arrived at the establishment "the reservation was not there" and that no one contacted her to inform her of the situation. "We were until one in the morning looking for something free, we called three different hotels, but we found nothing. We have to sleep on the street", she assured.