Woman forced to put up tourists after they turned up at her house claiming they'd booked a room
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Imagine waking up one morning to find a load of tourists knocking on your door for their bed and breakfast orders.
Well, this is what happened to Karin Arsenius - but rather than turning them away, she and her family kindly put up three of these international tourists in their home after they turned up claiming they'd booked a room.
Around 20 unwanted Booking.com users from locations such as Algeria, Canada, India and the US arrived at Karin's doorstep in south-east London expecting the accomodation they booked online.
The 37-year-old says people had booked accommodation via the website, which listed the address as a flat in Greenwich.
She said her street's postcode had been used for the bookings, with their house beneath the pin drop.
Among the guests where three students from Argentina, who arrived at the Plumstead property at 20:00 BST on 27 May.
Karin's partner took them to the pub to try and resolve the issue with little avail.
"They had nowhere to go and we tried all the the local hotels but everything was booked out," Karin told BBC News.
"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'.
Karin ended up making up beds in her living room, where three women from Argentina stayed.
"But it shouldn't ever have got that far. It should have been taken care of, even if Booking.com is put out," Karin added.
Despite spending hours on the day trying to solve the problem with booking.com, nothing changed.
However, the company have now confirmed that the 'property has been completely removed'.
One of the tourists - Sabrina Salomé Schneider, 31 - called the whole situation a 'nightmare'.
"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," Schneider said.
"They're a big corporation. They should be able to afford putting a few people up."
A Booking.com statement provided to LADbible reads: "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.
"We can confirm this property has been completely removed from our site and all customers affected were contacted by a member of our customer service team to apologise and offer any support required in relation to refunds, relocations and additional fees, and we of course extend our sincere apologies to the homeowner."
