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Ten Downing Street appeared as a £55-a-night holiday rental in a deliberate online booking test—not a real place to stay. Fourteen people applied during the 20-minute test, 1News reported on 29 September 2026. The decoy shows how a listing can attract interest; it does not show that those applicants were defrauded. In New Zealand, reported cases involving copied homes show the more direct risk: a fake listing can use real property photos and details to draw a traveler toward a private payment.
What the fake Downing Street listing does—and does not—show
In 1News’ report, 10 Downing Street was listed for £55 per night as part of a test of online booking controls. Fourteen people applied in 20 minutes. The property was not genuinely available, so this was a decoy, not evidence that those applicants lost money or that the test measured the prevalence of travel scams. Read the 1News report.
How fake listings have affected New Zealand travelers and owners
Mt Maunganui: a copied home and a private payment
The New Zealand Herald reported that a fake Booking.com listing copied details and images of a genuine Mt Maunganui property and directed a would-be guest to make a private payment. The report said a family lost nearly NZ$10,000. That is an account of one reported case, not a measure of how often this happens across the platform. Read the New Zealand Herald report.
Orewa: an owner says her home was listed without permission
RNZ reported that Orewa homeowner Kellie Walker said her six-bedroom house appeared on Booking.com even though she had not listed it. She told RNZ the page remained live for weeks after she reported it. Her account raises a different risk from a traveler encountering a fake rental: property owners may find their homes represented online without their consent. Read RNZ’s report.
#1 Best Overall
These cases are reports about specific incidents in 2024. They establish neither a platform-wide failure rate nor which booking service is safest.
Warning signs in a booking or payment conversation
A listing can look convincing if it borrows a real property’s photographs and description. Pay close attention when the payment process changes after you have started a booking. Netsafe’s guidance, reported by 1News, identifies requests to move communication or payment off the booking platform as warning signs—especially a claim that “the payment didn’t work” followed by a request to “send us a link to another payment platform.”
Rank #2
| What happens | Why it matters | Safer response |
|---|---|---|
| You are asked to pay through a new link or service outside the booking platform. | The payment would no longer follow the booking process you started, making the request a warning sign. | Pause; do not use the new link. Keep booking communication and payment on the platform. |
| You are asked to “communicate with us off-platform.” | Moving the conversation away from the platform removes it from the original booking channel. | Keep the conversation on-platform and verify the property or operator using contact details found independently. |
| The listing’s details seem familiar or unusually convincing. | Fake listings have been reported using copied photos and descriptions of genuine New Zealand homes. | Check whether the listing exists through independently sourced property or operator details; do not treat familiar photos as proof. |
What to do if a booking request changes unexpectedly
- Stop before paying again. Treat a claimed payment failure and a request for a different payment link or off-platform contact as a reason to pause.
- Verify independently. Find contact details for the property or operator from a source other than the message or link that prompted concern. Verification may help you check the request; it is not a guarantee that a listing is legitimate.
- Keep communication and payment on the booking platform. Do not follow a request to move the transaction elsewhere.
- If you suspect fraud or have paid, contact your bank or card provider promptly. Netsafe’s officer told 1News that recovery tends to be harder after a wire transfer or cryptocurrency payment than after a bank or card payment. That comparison is about relative difficulty, not a promise that a bank or card payment will be refunded.
See 1News’ report on travel-scam warning signs and Netsafe’s advice.
What platforms can check—and what these reports cannot establish
Netsafe chief online safety officer Sean Lyons told 1News, “It’s the industry that has the ability to see the patterns.” His point is that a booking service may be able to compare listing patterns across its systems, while an individual traveler generally sees only one booking at a time. It is an argument about where prevention can happen, not a formal finding about legal responsibility. Read the report and Lyons’ comments.
In the Mt Maunganui and Orewa reporting, owners described problems with unauthorized or copied listings and delays after reporting them. Booking.com, in its response described in that coverage, outlined verification and investigation practices, including precautionary closure. Those are distinct accounts: owner reports describe their experiences, while the company describes its processes. The cases do not establish how often listings are fake, how consistently reports are handled, or whether one booking platform is safer than another. The assigned Stuff page was not accessible in the reporting reviewed here, so no claim unique to that article is included.
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