New Zealand tourist scammed $10k after she booked fake Gold Coast accommodation

A 20-year-old tourist has revealed the horrifying moment she realised she had been scammed out of $10,000.

New Zealand woman Georgia Pemberton and her friends decided to book an eight-day Gold Coast stay to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

However, when they rocked up to their accommodation, they were stunned to find that what they thought would be a dreamy holiday house, was in fact a family home.

Ms Pemberton booked the waterfront accommodation through BookaBach - a New Zealand-founded platform that is part of Expedia Group and is used for booking holiday accommodation.

After realising she had been scammed, Ms Pemberton took to TikTok to explain the situation and issue a warning to others.

“I paid the first deposit back in like June or July, and the communication with this place, the host, was normal – everything was normal, everything seemed fine,” Ms Pemberton said.

The group paid the rest of the deposit on December 22, the day they flew in.

Ms Pemberton said she was waiting for further check-in instructions but when they never came, she decided they would just go straight to the property and see the host there.

“I thought, you know what, probably the host is there if that is their family place, so we just jumped in the Uber and went over to it.”

It was when she knocked on the front door of the property that things “got bad”.

When a woman opened the door and asked how she could help them, Ms Pemberton and her friends explained they had booked the property on BookaBach.

“I don’t do BookaBach”, the woman responded.

“My heart literally sank. What do you mean you don’t do Bookabach? Who did I just pay $10,000 to?” Ms Pemberton said.

Ms Pemberton explains how she showed the woman photos of the listing on her phone to which the woman replies, “that is my house. I live here. This is my family home”.

The woman explained that she had previously tried to sell her house and that the scammer must have used those photos to create the fake listing on BookaBach.

Ms Pemberton said that the woman had told her she had some problems in the past and had an idea of who was behind the scam.

“The girl that came out was the same girl that was the host in the BookaBach pictures, so this scammer has taken photos of the woman from her WhatsApp and has pretended to be her,” she said.

“The girl actually lives here as well. So it’s giving someone was more so scamming her, like it was personal.”

The group of friends were left stranded with no accommodation, walking the streets with their luggage before figuring out what they were going to do next.

“I started to freak out a little bit because I’m like, firstly, where’s the $10,000, secondly, when I sat down and to think about it, I’m like, Oh my gosh, we actually got scammed.

“Thirdly, we’re just rolling around our suitcases in a different country, with nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep”, Ms Pemberton said.

Luckily, one of her friends explained their situation to BookaBach, who provided the group with a hotel room for a couple of nights until they could organise their own accommodation.

The group managed to secure an Airbnb for the remainder of their stay, however Ms Pemberton said the experience left her feeling sick to her stomach.

“I just feel like something could have gone really bad. It was giving dodge, it was giving run. We’re safe and we’re okay. I’m never using BookaBach again. I refuse.”

A spokesperson for BookaBach’s parent company, Expedia, said Ms Pemberton has been refunded in full.

“We sincerely apologise for Ms Pemberton’s experience and want to assure you that we take any claims of fraudulent use of our platform very seriously”, the spokesperson said.

“We are still actively investigating this matter”.