I spoke yesterday to your fraud department alerting them to a potential fraud. It concerns a hotel booking I made - I thought with Village Hotels direct, but the site turned out to be confirmations@hotelvalues.com and Village hotels subsequently told me they believe it is a part of or associated with the booking.com group
As background, I went on what I thought was the Village's own website to book 2 nights for 30th May to 1st June and saw the rate as approx. £236 for the 2 nights non-flexible rate. I went ahead to book it but when Lloyds bank verification came up as £473.45, I immediately attempted to stop the transaction going through - but it went through despite my efforts. This amount was shown as 2 nights at £149.14 plus Tax Recovery Charges & Service Fees of £175.17, totalling Assuming that was a fraud, I contacted your bank fraud department who said I should first contact the retailer. I did reply to the booking confirmation email from the sender - confirmations@hotelvalues.com. I also rang a number which Village hotels gave me - 02035646725. I have not heard from them or have not been able to contact them.
I contacted Village Hotels customer services. At first they had not heard of confirmation@hotelvalues.com but later said that it is part of booking.com. I have tried to contact their customer services at 02035646725 but it is almost impossible to get through. Village hotels confirmed to me that their own rate for the rooms (twin ordinary) for that period is £84 per night, so £168 total (more than £300 less than this apparent scam is charging). Village Hotels described this as gross overcharging. The rooms are actually booked but it has been done on what I consider a fraudulent basis. The booking was on a no-refund basis so will need to be cancelled by the bank.
As confirmation of my suspicions, my wife has just received a text from M&S Card services as her M& S card was first used to try and make the booking but verification did not go ahead as she was not present to confirm, and my Lloyds card was then used to try and make the transaction. So M&S know it is a wrong transaction and are hopefully putting a stop on it. I hope you will do the same with my aborted transaction - which somehow the fraudsters forced through (though, oddly the hotel booking went through, as I have mentioned). My request is for a charge back for the full amount of £473.45 or for you to regard this as a claim under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit.
Claimed loss: £473.45
Desired outcome: Refund/reversal of the transaction
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Call your bank back as soon as possible and ask for a chargeback using the reason Section 75; tell them again about the situation explaining it as a fraud. Provide further evidence you are owed the money back by giving them the confirmation email from the hotel regarding the booking. For booking.com, if they do not answer you escalate the issue through legal or social media channels as fast as you can.