A theatre-goer fell victim to a "sophisticated phishing attack" after booking a "luxury" London apartment, only to discover the address was a Wetherspoon pub. Paul Dawson, from Loughborough in Leicestershire, paid £73 for a one-night stay for his family via Booking.com at The London Crown apartments to watch the musical Hamilton in the West End. Days later, he said, he discovered the address shown in the listing was actually The Liberty Bounds pub, a Wetherspoon near Tower Bridge.
Consumer protection organisation Which? said Wetherspoon staff had been turning away up to 20 tourists a day after scammers used the pub's address as a listing for a "block of luxury apartments". Which? said it was also made aware of a property listed as "Apartments near Big Ben", with the address given as Portcullis House, part of the House of Commons estate, where hundreds of MPs work. Booking.com told Which? that in both cases, listings for legitimate properties had been targeted by a "sophisticated phishing attack, allowing criminals to hijack the listings".
Wetherspoon said it had informed Booking.com about this scam "as soon as it came to their attention". Dawson, 55, made his booking in August. Two days later, he said he received an email from The London Crown containing a link to a fake Booking.com page, which asked for his bank details.
Dawson told Which? he contacted Booking.com with his suspicions, but said the platform told him that he would need to visit the "fake apartment" and wait until after 7pm before it would relocate him. This was despite Mr Dawson explaining to them that he had since discovered the address shown in the listing was actually The Liberty Bounds pub. He told Which?: "I explained to the support staff that I had autistic children and the idea of turning up at a clearly non-existent property at 10.30pm would have been catastrophic.
"This did not change their response, that I needed to go to the property. They said that if it was not possible to check in then I could contact them again and they would find an alternative." Dawson said the family ended up staying in the Premier Inn in Goodge Street. The listing for the London Crown apartments had 250 negative reviews from August and September along with a handful of, likely fake, positive reviews, Which? said.
The BBC checked the listing on Thursday. The information was still visible but the page carried the message: "We're sorry, but this property isn't taking reservations on our site right now". Wetherspoon said the listing was removed only for it to reappear, "though it now appears that the ability to book has been blocked".
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