Beware of a new scam

[mnhtnbb]

which involves hotel reservations being hacked through the website Booking com

This afternoon I received an email from Booking com advising me of a message from one of the hotels I booked for a trip to Scotland I'm planning in October. The message from the hotel indicated it wanted to confirm a credit card by charging a small amount to the card which it would then reverse. I had never run into a hotel in that site doing such a thing, but it was on Booking.com's website. So I completed the form and a screen came back with an error message to call my credit card company. I did and talked to the fraud department. The charge had been denied, credited not to the hotel, but to a payment processing app called PAYZY, owned by a Greek bank. Talk about a red flag. I called the hotel in Scotland and only got voicemail. So I sent an email inquiring what time I could call and speak to Reservations about confirming the credit card. Then I sent the hotel another message via the messaging center on Booking.com.
About an hour later I had a response from hotel management indicating this was indeed a scam and they had reported it to the IT department of Booking com.
This was probably the most professional looking scam I have seen because the scammers had hacked into Booking.com to use their software to access reservations which asked for a credit card to be charged, and unless you called your card company or checked your credit card account online, you'd never see the charge against the strange app, rather than the name of the hotel.
I called my credit card company back to tell them the hotel confirmed the scam. The agent told me credit card companies are experiencing billions of dollars monthly in fraudulent charges.
Two days ago--on another credit card-- I got a text alert inquiring whether I'd authorized a $9. charge to some store in Missouri. I hadn't. That card is being replaced.
What a world.