Restaurants urged to be wary over ‘rise in booking scams'

A restaurant reservation platform has warned of a rise in "deeply concerning" scams targeting hospitality businesses and their customers.

It is understood that there has been an increase in third-party scammers posing as booking sites or restaurants and asking venues and customers to share passwords, log-in credentials, and credit card details.

OpenTable, which works with over 60,000 restaurants worldwide, urged operators to be wary and said asking for card details was something it would "never do".

In one incident shared on Twitter in August a customer claimed a fraudster, posing as a restaurant, had asked them to input card details to pay a £20 deposit to secure their booking. The scammer then tried to charge £469 to the card because it had access to all the details of the reservation.

And in 2020 the Ritz hotel in London launched an investigation after scammers appeared to pose as members of staff to steal customer credit card data.

Although OpenTable confirmed that scams were not operating on its site and there had been "no vulnerability" in its systems, the platform said that "these types of scams [are] on the rise across the hospitality industry".

As a result, it has advised restaurants to use two factor authentication to keep systems secure and has alerted operators to possible scams.

OpenTable has also begun contacting diners directly following their booking to confirm that its restaurant partners would never request password or credit card details and asked guests to warn restaurants of any suspicious behaviour.

A spokesperson for OpenTable said: "These are third-party phishing and social engineering scams targeting restaurants, which is deeply concerning to us and to our restaurant partners.

"Data protection is of the utmost importance to us, as well as to the restaurants we work with. With these types of scams on the rise across the hospitality industry, we are actively alerting and educating restaurants and diners to this kind of criminal conduct and how they can recognize suspicious activity targeting them.

"Encouraging [restaurants] to prioritize conversations with their staff about data security, taking advantage of [two factor authentication] and staying alert to these matters are all really important reminders."

Has your business been impacted by a scam posing as a bookings platform? Get in touch: jungmin.seo@thecaterer.com. Image: redzen2 / Shutterstock