Brisbane man’s horror to find fraudster spent $5000 on his credit card while overseas

An Australian couple’s dream trip to Europe turned into the stuff of “nightmares” when they checked their credit card balance and didn’t recognise any of the charges.

An Australian couple’s dream trip to Europe turned into the stuff of “nightmares” when they discovered a fraudster had racked up $5000 in unauthorised credit card transactions in their names.

Peter and Kay Shaw, from Brisbane, travelled to Europe in May.

Everything was going smoothly until they learned their flight out of Portugal’s capital city Lisbon had been cancelled.

“So we had to make some alternative accommodation arrangements which we did through Booking.com,” Mr Shaw told news.com.au.

“Within a very short period of time, I got a message saying there was suspicious charges on my account.”

Concerned, Mr Shaw logged into his bank account and saw that three charges totalling nearly $5000 had appeared on his credit balance.

The money was spent on a Booking.com transaction in Amsterdam, approximately 2200 kilometres from where they were located at the time.

“We were really spooked by then, it’s just a little scary to be honest,” he recalled.

Peter and Kay Shaw were shocked to discover $5000 had been siphoned out of their account for a transaction thousands of kilometres away.

The couple were in Lisbon at the time of the transactions, which appeared to be for accommodation in Amsterdam.

Mr Shaw immediately rushed to cancel his card “which is a pain in the arse when you're in Europe with no money”, according to him.

It was the last week of their trip and they managed to scrape by, planning to resolve everything when they got back on Australian soil.

But this is where the true ordeal began, according to Mr Shaw.

“I got home and that’s when all hell had broken loose,” he said.

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The three transactions (marked as travel) which totalled nearly $5000.

Mr Shaw cl;aims he struggled to get in touch with anyone from Booking.com to get the fraudulent expenses refunded.

“People need to be very wary. If they are owed money, they will have an absolute nightmare getting it back from Booking.com,” he said.

He managed to track down an Australian phone number but this went nowhere. Then he used the company’s online chat services but was stuck in a hellish feedback loop where every time he got in touch to chase up, he would get a new staff member and had to explain his situation all over again.

“They were asking me to supply a copy of my credit card statement, things like that,” Mr Shaw said.

“So I did that. I reckon three, if not four times.”

Still not getting any kind of follow-up, the frustrated customer decided to use LinkedIn to track down the email address belonging to the CEO of Booking.com.

“I was not getting any responses, where the hell do I go?” he added.

The couple say they didn’t receive a very helpful response from Booking.com.

Mr Shaw sent an email off, then a few weeks later claims he received a phone call from Booking.com saying “please don’t email the CEO again”.

When he spoke to news.com.au, he said he still had a negative balance on his credit statement.

But since then, the company has reimbursed him for the stolen funds.

“At Booking.com, our primary aim is to facilitate smooth and enjoyable travel experiences for our customers,” a company spokesperson said to news.com.au.

“Upon further investigation, we could not find any evidence that the credit card details of the customer were compromised through Booking.com.

“We have blocked the user connected to this unauthorised booking and have worked to provide the guest a full refund for the unrecognised charges.”

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Originally published as Brisbane man’s horror to find fraudster spent $5000 on his credit card while overseas