I was baffled when 20 tourists turned up at my home & claimed they'd 'booked a room'… the truth made it so much worse | The Sun

A MUM has shared her misery after 20 strangers turned up at her home claiming they'd booked a room – but the truth was much worse.

Karin Arsenius, 37, described her ordeal as "very frustrating" but had no idea how the issue came about.

It was only later that she discovered her home had been listed on Booking.com by scammers.

She is thinking about taking legal action against the holiday website after some duped travellers even tried to find a key safe inside her house.

Karin, from Plumstead, London, was dismayed to find tourists from around the world, including India, The US and Canada, turning up on her doorstep.

She told BBC News: "We just need it to stop somehow.

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"It is very frustrating."

Karin even had to house three female students from Argentina as they had nowhere else to go after arriving unexpectedly on May 27.

She added: "They had nowhere to go and we tried all the local hotels but everything was booked out.

"There was nothing free so in the end we said 'we're not comfortable with just letting you go out in the night so let's just make up some beds in the living room and you can just stay here'.

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"But it shouldn't ever have got that far. It should have been taken care of, even if Booking.com is put out."

Booking.com said they had apologised to everyone affected and removed the listing.

It had featured the address of a flat in Greenwich but a map which wrongly showed the location as Karin's house.

Sabrina Schneider, 31, who was one of the misled guests fumed: "The family tried to help us, but we are still waiting for money from Booking.com as we still have to spend money to find new accommodation.

"They're a big corporation. They should be able to afford to put a few people up."

Consumer law expert Lisa Webb – who works for consumer group Which? – told the BBC: "Booking.com needs to take every step it has in its arsenal to make sure that first of all, if it does happen, people are protected, people are given compensation, but secondly that these scams cannot appear on their platform at all in the first place.

"[Scammers] will target individuals in any way that they can and they are very unscrupulous people doing this.

"There needs to be checks and balances in place though to make sure that it cannot happen."

A spokesperson for the website said: "We take safety and security very seriously, and every week, we facilitate millions of stays with the vast majority taking place with absolutely no problems.

"'Scams are unfortunately a battle many industries are facing against unscrupulous fraudsters looking to take advantage and it is something we are tackling head-on. 

"We have a number of robust security measures in place, but in the very rare instance there may be an issue with a specific property we always investigate immediately."

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