A “alarming surge” in scams that have seen popular accommodation platforms used as bait to con people out of huge sums of money needs to be urgently investigated, a Fine Gael MEP has said.
Regina Doherty said scams have increased by up to 900 per cent over the last two years.
She said this huge increase raised concerns over “security failures and the threat they pose to consumers across Europe”.
Ms Doherty has submitted questions to the Commissioner for Justice and Consumer Protection, Ireland’s Michael McGrath, demanding clarity on whether existing EU consumer protection laws are being properly implemented online in light of the dramatic rise in fraud.
She has also sought answers as to what action the European Commission can take to better resource the protection of consumers' rights online.
“The scale of these scams is shocking,” Ms Doherty said, adding that “cybercriminals are exploiting vulnerabilities” in computer systems “to steal personal and financial information” from consumers across Europe.
“This is completely unacceptable.”
Ms Doherty noted that scams were becoming increasingly sophisticated “with fraudsters gaining access to hotel accounts and sending legitimate-looking emails to trick customers into handing over their bank details”.
She said the European Commission “needs to step up and take decisive action to prevent further scams and restore trust in digital platforms.”
Last summer booking.com’s internet safety officer Marnie Wilking said there had been an explosion in scams across all industries over the previous 18 months – up by between 500 per cent and 900 per cent - and she said this had been fuelled by advances in artificial intelligence (AI).
Typically, these scams see people who have booked a place to stay using a platform such as booking.com being contacted by criminals pretending to be the hotels or accommodation providers seeking urgent payments.
As the targets do have actual upcoming bookings with booking.com, Airbnb or another platform, they are more inclined to fall victim to the scams.
Their details can be compromised after the criminals gain access to the hotel accounts and can see who has made bookings and for what dates.
Another ruse sees scammers posting bogus accommodation listings on online booking platforms and taking money from victims before disappearing.
“Of course, we’ve had phishing since the dawn of email, but the uptick started shortly after ChatGPT got launched,” Ms Wilking told a security conference in Toronto last summer.
“The attackers are definitely using AI to launch attacks that mimic emails far better than anything that they’ve done to date.”
