Oleksandr S.

The administration of sitejabber.com informed me that more than 3700 visitors of the site read my revues about scams in area of hotels booking. From one side I pleased of such attention, from another I have sad feelings. So massive interest to the topic of hotel reservation scams shows that problem still exists and rises in the scale.
Im not a fighter, Im not a justice seeker, Im not burning with desire of revenge. I understand its almost impossible. So why continue to poisoning myself with such thoughts? In June my wife and me spend nice holiday on Malta in much better hotel that we were deceived at first attempt. Later in September we had excellent holiday in Benalmadena (Southern Spain) We almost forget our sour adventure with booking hotel on Malta. But not till the end.
Now Im more attentive while making bookings. Dont believe totally reviews you see on the site where you booking your hotel. They show you only bright cap of the iceberg and hide its darker underwater side. Their goal is to sell a product not showing its less pleasant sides. For example, I appreciate much Booking.com and I wrote near dozen reviews on hotels I booked through this site. They publish all positive except one that was bad. Same with all booking sites. So try to find reliable reviews on independent not obliged sites which not making bookings.
Beside attempts to keep my minds in peace Im still pay attention to the information about booking frauds. So I want to reveal some of my findings to the visitors of Sitejabber. To cut the long story short Im giving here some useful links about hotel booking frauds. While on holiday in Spain two month ago I found very interesting big article with all-speaking title Police warn of an increase in holiday accommodation fraud in the local newspaper Sur in English. Worth to read. Link: http://www.surinenglish.com/*******/news/costasol-malaga/police-warn-increase-holiday**************.html
The City of London Police published its own warning on holiday rentals frauds and tips how avoid it all. Link: https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/news-and-appeals/campaigns-and-initiatives/holidayfraud/Pages/default.aspx
Almost same but with some additional details in newspapers:
The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/*******/Police-warning-over-fake-holiday-villas.html
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/jan/04/holiday-scams-travel-dangers-how-to-avoid-them
The Daily Mail (South of France): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-*******/Holiday-villa-fraud-thats-hit-countless-British-families-You-arrive-dream-villa-owners-never-heard-sent-cash-chillingly-plausible-conman.html
Information on hotels and villas reservation scams by some most popular holiday destinations:
Portugal: http://portugalresident.com/holiday-fraud-villa-villains
Holiday fraud: villa villains
Ibiza (Spain): http://www.hfmibiza.com/new-police-warning-about-rental-fraud/
Palm Beach (USA): http://www.wpbf.com/article/police-warn-of-scam-involving-vacation-rentals/*******
Wilmington (USA): http://www.foxwilmington.com/story/*******/police-warn-of-scam-increase-over-holidays
Be careful, be safe and have a nice holiday
Alexander

How a Global Scam Hotel Reservation Business Operates
Dr Nahin Mamun
Marketing Insight Specialist, Entrepreneur, Artist
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-global-scam-hotel-business-nahin-mamun
December 2014
Searching for great hotel deals online is fun and getting a good discount can make a trip amazing. However, it all can become a sour experience if the traveller becomes a victim of online scam for hotel reservation. This article is about such a shady organisation that is operating globally and even in the UK consumers are not protected from its dubious operations.
It all starts by searching in Google for hotels and then through Google ads a few websites come in the top of search results. Once a traveller goes to the hotel's website, there is a form to fill-up for reservation and telephone numbers for telephone reservations. The operator takes in travel and bank details and gives back booking reference. Everything to this point is straightforward. The problem is that the website is not of the hotel it poses to be, and the operator works for an unknown organisation with global outreach, but its details cannot be found anywhere. So, if a traveller goes to the destination hotel and finds there is actually no reservation and a credit card is charged, it is almost impossible to hold the company accountable. In UK, Trading Standard Institute or Consumer Advice Centre can only charge an organisation for criminal activities if it has an address.
The breadth of the organisation can be visible from H-rez.com, a domain registered in Ireland and has a daily sales around $73. H-rez.com appeared online in 2007 and in 2008 it started operation as an affiliate of booking.com, which is evident from the Internet Web Archive. Booking.com was acquired by a multi-billion dollar US company, Priceline.com in 2005. Priceline offers a travel affiliate programme which perhaps works as the backbone of organisations like h-rez.com. This is not clear at this point. What H-rez.com has done is it deleted all trace of its network relation from its website and without the Internet web archive (archive.org) it is almost impossible to know the connection between h-rez.com and Priceline. This relation is not evident in the present web pages. However, it is clear that there is a large organisation behind h-rez.com and all other sites in concern. The affiliate programme allows someone to resell the service through a website and there is no accountability in the process.
The shady organisation that empowers H-rez.com has launched thousands of websites for hotels around the world that appear to be the hotels' website, but none of them actually are. What is common in these websites is the telephone number. It is amazing that thousands of hotels around the world have the same telephone number. For example, in UK the following hotel websites in which the addresses are of the hotels, but the reservation procedure goes to some unknown place. These are just a few examples:
• http://www.baytreehousebb-dorchester.com/
• http://www.gabberfarmbb-plymouth.com/
• http://www.ventureshotel-london.com/
• http://www.radnorshirearmshotelpresteigne.com/
• http://www.greshamhotelweymouth.com/
• http://www.smiddyhaughhotelauchterarder.com/
• http://www.arklehousebb-londonderry.com/
• http://www.theherdwickinnhotel-penrith.com/
• http://www.theroyalhighlandhotelinverness.com/
• http://www.midwayhousehotelyork.com/
• http://www.hazelwoodguesthousebridgend.com/
• http://www.highfieldhousehotelkirknewton.com/
• http://www.clonyardhousehotel-dalbeattie.com/
• http://www.themintohotel-edinburgh.com/
• http://www.stonarguesthouseclactononsea.com/
• http://www.mayfieldhotelguesthouse.com/
• http://www.barnparkfarmhoniton.com/
• http://www.cobobayhotelguernsey.com/
• http://www.tregarthhomestaybangor.com/
• http://www.stgeorgeshousehotel-shanklin.com/
• http://www.bluebellhousehotel-windsor.com/
• http://www.belfieldhousehotelsheptonmallet.com/
• http://www.littleparkfarmhotel-reading.com/
• http://www.thebeechtreehotel-christchurch.com/
• http://www.durrantshotel-london.com/
• http://www.anchorhousehoteldartmouth.com/
• http://www.thegeorgeatnunneyhotel-frome.com/
• http://www.burnhousemanorhotel.com/
All these websites have a common telephone number and a link to Secure Hotel Reservation (SHR) for contact, which again is a website that contains no physical address. Thus, a traveller can never link to that agent organisation from the websites. The only link between the hotels' sites and H-rez.com is the common telephone number in the websites. When checking a booking in these sites, results are generated from Travelnow.com which is part of Expedia Affiliate Programme. Thus, there is a Booking.com affiliate programme and an Expedia affiliate programme and the entire affiliate network is hidden from the consumers.
By creating a web of deception, the main organisation remains completely out of the picture in UK. The first offence it does is to pose as a hotel site, and second is to hide its address. Then it has the luxury to take debit and credit card details of travellers. It can at the point of selling say there is no cancelation fee, but later say there was an agreement for cancellation fees. It says there will be an email of confirmation, and then no emails are sent. Some of these incidents are reported in:
• http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.h-rez.com
• http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g*******-i17-k*******-Booking_com_London_Hotel_scam_warning-London_England.html
There are, in fact, many more organisations like H-rez.com around the world working in a huge network. These organisations use one toll-free booking number in the USA but have different discount codes. It can only be assumed that the toll free number is of a travel affiliate programme.
The question remains how the Trading Standard Institute or Consumer Advice Centre can take action to protect the customers in UK. Since there is no physical address of the operators, it is not clear whether the reservations are taking place in the UK or in a foreign country. These hotel websites are pure scam and the organisation working behind them is invisible. Thus, using the loopholes in the system, organisations like h-rez.com operate in the global travelling industry. The mystery remains which organisation is behind this huge global operation, where it is located, and how consumers worldwide can be protected from its offensive practices.
Keegan Robbins
Inbound Marketing Consultant at Q4Launch
We have just started seeing bogus sites like these, from SHR and H-Rez, for some of our clients here in the US. I report them as Phishing sites to Google, Microsoft, the Anti-Phishing Working Group, and others when I find them, but there's no guarantee that'll do anything. If you discover any other recourse for inns and hotels that have fallen victim to this practice, please share! Until them, I'm just trying to make sure all our clients are aware of the issue so they can promote their true websites to potential visitors.

Dr Nahin Mamun
Marketing Insight Specialist, Entrepreneur, Artist
Well, my experience is that these sites are supported by the two of the largest American hotel booking companies. They have both white-label and black-label hotel booking sites. Just before writing this post, I lost money to a scam site and when I called the hotel, it managed to close down the scam site by talking to a large hotel booking company. That explains everything. From that experience, I have a feeling that all large American multinational companies have both white-label and black-label practices in respective industries. You shall see that Facebook and Google provides ad platform to scam sites that do not have a physical address. It is not very difficult to check before letting them ad.

October 30,2015 I booked hotel on Malta through its site http://blueseasanantonhotelapartments.com/rooms.htm and got confirmation immidiately. Next day I tried to contact with hotel to resolve some details of my stay. But occured, That I havn't reservation there. And at all such site not exist. I mentioned only that that so called reservation was made tj my surprise by unknown to me http://reservations.hotel-rez.com. As appeared such site didn' exist or work at all. All this is just one big American swindler scheme. Farewell my $470. Thank you American authorities you accept such activity on your soil.