Skip to main content

Looking for advice: handling Booking.com fraud + commission dispute escalation

  • January 7, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 46 views
kasra12321
New Participant
Forum|alt.badge.img+1

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping to get some advice from hosts who have dealt with difficult disputes with Booking.com, especially around fraud and unpaid reservations.

I’m currently in a situation where:

  • a guest booked via Booking.com using a fraudulent account

  • no payment was ever received

  • the guest stayed one night and engaged in criminal activity (police involved)

  • the property required professional remediation

  • Booking.com was contacted during the stay but said they couldn’t intervene or cancel

Despite everything that occurred, Booking.com issued a commission invoice for the reservation... After disputing the commission, Booking.com closed my account and is now threatening legal action over the charge.

I’m curious if anyone has had any success reaching an actual human that understands the STR business at Booking.com? 

So far, out of all the OTA’s, Booking.com seems to be the worst one (by a very very large margin).

 

    2 replies

    Mahmodul
    Known Participant
    Forum|alt.badge.img+1
    • Mahmodul
    • Known Participant
    • January 7, 2026

    First rule on the host side with Booking.com: keep Payments by Booking.com turned on always. When it’s off, you’re much more exposed to fraudulent bookings or guests arriving without valid payment details. Because there isn’t a traditional guest-review system like some other OTAs, you can also see a higher share of problematic stays. Pairing that with solid ID verification (a third-party tool like Truvi/Autohost) can really reduce the risk. Some of our clients actually ditched it the platform all together for being so troublesome.

    I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, especially with police involvement and remediation costs. In our experience, we’ve successfully disputed Booking.com commission invoices when a reservation wasn’t paid (for example, by documenting “no payment received” clearly in the reservation/payment record). We haven’t had cases where we were forced to pay commission when there was genuinely no collected payment. That said, your outcome sounds unusually harsh, so I’d push escalation again with very clear documentation: proof of no payment received, the timeline of your contact during the stay, the police report/case number, and remediation invoices. If you have already done that, I am sorry I could not be more helpful here.

    We take the hosting burden from you. Just google Castle Host
      Will.Fraser
      Known Participant
      Forum|alt.badge.img
      • Will.Fraser
      • Known Participant
      • January 7, 2026

      Well said, ​@Mahmodul !

       

      ​@kasra12321 I’m sorry you’re going through this.  While I haven’t had any luck getting Booking.com to suck less than they tend to do I want to remind you that this sucks, and if you push through it and juice this situation for all the learnings you can get out of it then you’ll be stronger as a result of it.  Money can go away, but knowledge and wisdom stick around far better.

       

        Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement