> how do you imagine did they get the information needed to call you back and knew of the booking?

Maybe booking.com sends an email to the hotel, but they legitimately don't have the login credentials to cancel the reservation?

This was it. They add calendar events too apparently.

Had this. That was exactly what happened to me. It was refunded and I decided never to use booking.com ever again.

Good choice, for several reasons.

There's 0% chance this is what happened. Hotels can get in touch with booking easily by phone or e-mail to fix any login issues, or to delist from booking if they don't want to be partners. Also, why would they have to log in? Booking.com sends their invoices by e-mail as well.

This case was commission fraud by the hotel against booking.com

IIRC when I worked at booking until 2017, they had already stopped the practice to share customer data via email for privacy+security reasons years ago.

All reservations are forwarded to the hotel; otherwise, how does the hotel know who’s coming?

How do Uber drivers know who to pick up?

> Or you get back to the hotel, tell them you understand how commission fraud works and if they are willing to split that commission (18%) half and half with you.

That sure sounds like a crime in itself, no?

It sounds ridiculous. You pay that 18% so how would they even split it?

> You pay that 18% so how would they even split it?

You don’t. You cancel on Booking.com and then pay the hotel 90% of what Booking quoted.

Booking.com hasn't paid some hotelliers for months, so there you have it. It's not comission fraud, it's either loss mitigation or the very same scam that the article describes.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/01/booking-com...

Having been scammed by booking.com car rentals myself, I see no surprises there.

Ouch:

> an Australian running a two-bedroom villa in Bali [--] managed to get paid out last week for the A$11,000 she was owed since March by tracking down a finance officer on Facebook.

More likely you'll be staying for free and they might toss in a dinner. They live and die by booking.com/hotels.com/expedia etc.

Then again: these 'new middlemen' are all equally shady themselves.

How would splitting a commission that you pay for anyway even work?

You cancel the original booking then place a second one direct with the hotel at cost A-(A-B)/2.

I've done this many times (not exactly the same, see below) with AirBnB and Redweek rentals -- once you get to know the property owner by staying there once or twice through Redweek they will happily agree to a better rate to deal direct.

> commission fraud

Is it fraud? Sounds like bog-standard disintermediation.

Disruption.