An “elderly aunt” has lost nearly $10,000 trying to rent a Christmas holiday home from a fake Booking.com listing.

Her family are among multiple customers and homeowners who have complained to the Herald about how easy it is to set up fake listings on the popular travel site – and how difficult it is to get them taken down.

Booking.com says it takes safety and security very seriously and is investing significantly in the problem of fake property listings.

The aunt had wanted to book a Mt Maunganui rental close to her own house so her out-of-town family could enjoy an extended Christmas stay near her, the home’s real owner, Carla Beazley, told the Herald.

However, the aunt unwittingly clicked on a fake Booking.com listing, made by a scammer who had copied photos and details from the real listing.

The scammer then directed the aunt to make a private payment away from the Booking.com site.

Beazley found out about it only when one of the aunt’s family members knocked on her door to ask questions.

Beazley had to explain they didn’t actually have a booking for her rental and that she was not part of the scam.

She said the family member was understanding despite their significant financial loss.

But she fears others may turn up in the same situation, and may become irate and the situation could escalate.

“This is a safety issue because we’ve just had someone turn up on our doorstep,” Beazley said.

It was also the second time a group had booked through the fake listing and then tracked Beazley down.

When the first group contacted Beazley on November 20, she immediately called Booking.com to try to get the fake listing taken down, she said.

She later spent hours making multiple follow-up calls over a series of weeks without luck, she said.

Two other property owners in the same situation have also been in touch with the Herald.

Mark Gray, who owns a Martinborough holiday rental listed on Airbnb, has also discovered a fake Booking.com listings of his property.

The owners of this Martinborough vineyard in the South Island have had a warning attached to the top of a fake listing of their holiday rental but only after spending weeks trying to get the travel site to take action. Photo / Supplied

A third owner – who wants to remain anonymous – contacted the Herald with the same problem. Gray and the third owner both said they had been trying for weeks to get fake listings of their properties taken down, without luck.

Beazley and Gray also said that when people set up new holiday home listings on Booking.com, the website did not require verifiable proof that a person owns the house, instead simply asking the lister to check a box saying they do.

A Booking.com spokeswoman did not directly answer a Herald question about whether people making new listings need to prove they own a property.

“We take safety and security very seriously and have a number of measures in place to verify properties before they begin welcoming guests – including checks performed by our security, local partner services and customer service teams," the spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said that when a property is flagged to them as suspicious, the site blocks the listing from taking bookings while it investigates.

It then removes the listing completely “if non-compliance with our terms and conditions is found”.

The spokeswoman said the “listing of fake properties by professional cyber criminals ​is a challenge for​ the trave​l sector” and Booking.com is investing significantly to limit the impact.

“We are sorry for the experiences these property owners brought to our attention and we have urgently addressed each of their individual concerns,” she said.

The day after the Herald contacted Booking.com, a red notice appeared at the top of the fake listing of Gray’s Martinborough property stating: “We’re sorry this property isn’t taking reservations on our site right now”.

The owners of this beautiful Martinborough vineyard said they spent hours on the phone listening to automated messages and being passed around between departments after complaining to Booking.com about a fake listing of their property.

However, Gray was unimpressed, saying he first contacted Booking.com trying to get the listing taken down on October 15 and had spent hours without success, until speaking to the Herald.

The fake Mt Maunganui listing of Beazley’s home has now been taken down, but she doubts it was Booking.com that did it.

She said she had instead started communicating with a person via the email address on the fake listing of her property.

Pretending to be a customer wanting to book her own home, she was given a British bank account to pay into and a copy of a passport photo page after she asked for verification she was talking to a real person.

Once she had the person’s name, Beazley changed tack and sent a formal-looking email pretending she was a law enforcement agency, threatening to report the person to Interpol if they didn’t remove the listing within 24 hours.

“It obviously scared them because it was gone the next morning,” Beazley said.

She believes it’s unlikely Booking.com removed the fake listing because a couple of days later the company sent her an automated email saying her complaint had been passed on to the relevant department to investigate.

-NZ Herald