Alright guys, today’s post is kind of intense but necessary IMO. I feel like I need to share my experience with you all because it was truly stressful, and I don’t want anyone else going through what I did. A few weeks ago, I went to Rhode Island with my family for vacation and was having a blast until I found out that my Expedia account was hacked. I got an email from them saying that my account address was changed from kimberlykong87@gmail.com to PrinsShirloufo@yahoo.com and panicked. As you can see below, there was an option to change it back so I did in a total frenzy. 
I managed to change it back to my original email (I don’t know where monteguejoanah@yahoo.com came from BTW), but my hacker (aka Omar M.) had already altered my personal info and used my points (about $120 or so) to fund his or her stay in a cheap hotel in Xiamen, China. FYI: I have two accounts on Expedia, and I couldn’t remember which one had payment info saved so I freaked out and called my credit card company to cancel everything right away. I had my parents do the same since they had also purchased tickets & trips through my account – better safe than sorry, right?
In addition to booking a hotel in China with my points, “Omar M.” used other cards to purchase trips to Hawaii and Cancun, and I was freaking out because I assumed they were stolen. Even though it wasn’t my money on the line, it was under my account, and I didn’t want to be associated with fraud in any way, shape or form.
I called Expedia for help and a young lady picked up. To my dismay, I ended up spending a good 50 minutes with her on the phone. Apparently, they couldn’t get in touch with the hotel? I was beyond upset so I asked her to also cancel a package that I purchased on their site not too long ago (on my second account) because I just couldn’t trust them. She managed to cancel my hotel but mentioned that there could be a fee for canceling the rental car I had reserved. I had no patience left at that point so I told her to call me back after everything was taken care of and if there was a fee, Expedia should & would absorb it. She assured me that she’d take care of everything and call me back…
…but I never heard back from her. So I called back and spoke to a different representative only to find that nothing was cancelled. Luckily, rep no. 2 was much better at her job – she cancelled my upcoming itinerary and closed my Sensible Stylista account but couldn’t shut down the hacked kimberlykong87@gmail.com account because I gave her “the wrong phone number.” Wrong phone number is in quotation marks because good ol’ Omar changed the number to something random – it’s probably not even a real number but whatever. I exasperatedly hung up because I was in the car and couldn’t pull up info without creating a hotspot with my cell. So, after creating my hotspot, I wrote down his number and called back…only to find out that they couldn’t close it because Omar had upcoming trips on the account.
I was so so SO beyond upset at this point. I had spent the entire morning dealing with this nonsense, and I felt helpless because they just wouldn’t deactivate my account. I asked to speak with a manager several times, but they all seemed to deflect when I requested to speak with a supervisor. I finally hung up and tried again on a different number – I pretended to be a happy customer in the hopes that it’d help me get in touch with someone with more clout in the company. It took a good 40 or so minutes, but I finally got transferred.
I explained my situation to the manager on duty, and he didn’t really sound apologetic which I found puzzling, but at that point, I didn’t care. All I wanted was a closed account so I didn’t think anything of it and just begged him to shut it down for me. He assured me that kimberlykong87@gmail.com was no longer in the system, but I wasn’t convinced since I could still see Omar’s info on my computer screen. He didn’t really offer any assistance when I said I could still see it? So I asked him to stay on the line with me while I tried logging back in. Luckily, my password + email combo was no longer working so I sighed in relief…but that relief didn’t last long because as soon as I got off the phone with him, I checked my email and found this.
The reason he couldn’t find my account is because my wonderful hacker changed it to yet another email address. Words eluded me at that point! I just didn’t understand why they weren’t able to see the changes on their server. I seriously didn’t have anything else left in me, and I couldn’t bear to spend another minute on the phone because I knew my efforts would be futile so I turned to social media for help. I expressed my frustration on twitter and heard back from them within seconds. They apologized and asked me to DM them. I felt a glimmer of hope at that moment, but no dice.
They told me they’d get back to me on the issue, but they never did. I decided to just let it go and hope for the best since I had already changed all of my credit cards, but then I got this message in my inbox.
I really wish I could update you guys with good news, but it’s been radio silence ever since so I have no idea what’s going on – hopefully everything worked out in my favor? Who knows. I’ve used tons of different travel sites in my lifetime, but I’ve never experienced anything as “difficult” as this. I’ve been hacked before (twice on Bank of America), but they rectified everything quickly so it was never an issue – this experience, on the other hand, was beyond draining, and I’m still afraid that things aren’t resolved. It was definitely sad because I was a loyal customer for years.
Honestly, I’m shocked that my Expedia account was hacked so easily and even more shocked that they seemed so cavalier about it all. The threat of identity theft, fraud and all that good stuff is REAL, and I want companies to take it as seriously as I do. Needless to say, I’ve taken my business elsewhere, and I recommend you do too. I will NEVER use Expedia again, especially since Costco Travel has such awesome package deals, and they got your back all day every day. Anywho, I’m sorry today’s post was such a downer, but I really just wanted to share my experience with you guys. I hope it’s somewhat helpful and serves as an important reminder to you all. Sending hugs from SF!
Holy shit, that sounds super scary! Plus that hacker, why is he insistant on his booking on your account? I hope he didn’t use your parent’s card or something! Sometimes I really don’t understand hackers 🙁 The way Expedia handled things were so bad either.
Maybe I was lucky, I book hotels with Expedia too. I had a booking error (my fault) on Expedia. I called them up and they kindly changed it for me. At least they were re-assuring and even gave me some extra credits to use later. They called me a couple of times to check on me and let me know how the process was going. I hope your account gets closed for real without any loss besides your credit points 🙁 ***hugs from Paris***
Author
Hi Carol! Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. I have NO idea why he or she kept using my account, and it seriously freaked me out. Luckily, he didn’t book his trips with any of my or my parents’ cards, but I’m assuming he used stolen credit cards for those purchases. Regardless, I didn’t want anything purchased under my name, email or account!
I’m REALLY glad they’ve been good to you! I was a loyal customer for a long time because they had great deals, but this experience turned me off for good. It’s definitely interesting that they offered credits to you though because when I asked for a voucher of some sort, the manager totally refused. I was REALLY upset about all the time I had wasted and felt like they should’ve offered me something from a customer service standpoint, out of principle if nothing else. I honestly didn’t even care about the potential freebie – I just felt like I deserved the gesture. Oh well! I just hope this experience doesn’t come back to haunt me later <3
Yeah, it’s understandable! Good luck for future booking! Though definitely not with Expedia anymore <3
Author
Yeah! Thanks for commenting, Carol.
Ah this STINKS! I’m so sorry you had to deal with this. It’s scary how easy it was for someone else to do all this and how difficult it’s been for you to get any relief. Keep us posted if anything else happens girl!
XO Ellen from Ask Away
http://www.askawayblog.com
Author
Thanks so much, Ellen <3 I'll definitely keep you updated.
Ugh, that’s so frustrating and upsetting! You’re being more gracious than I would – I’d be pissed about losing my points, too. At least you’re calling them out in a public forum; if that doesn’t get their direct attention at least their potential customers will know better.
Author
Hey Jenn! Thanks for taking time to read my post. I’m guessing it won’t make much of a difference, but I hope it’ll keep potential customers safe. I just want to bring awareness to the issue, but my whole experience sucked big time.
Thanks for the info, I feel sorry you were hacked and treated like that, Expedia is of my list
Author
Thanks for the comment, Paul! It took me a long time to write this up, but I felt like I needed to share.
Kim, if I could offer you a recommendation, it would be booking.com I use them about 70 percent of the time the other 30 percent is Air BnB renting whole house or guest house.
Author
I’ll definitely check them out – thank you for the recommendation!
Meant to say “off “my list
Why have you been hacked so many times? Do not ever trust any correspondence that you did not initiate. Take for example that very first email you show us here that has a link for you to click on to update your personal information. Don’t do that ever! Instead you need to manually navigate to the site in question and login through normal methods to validate and update any personal information. As for an organization like Expedia, I would try to solve anything with them on phone, email, or chat. Instead I would write a snail mail. I would explain the situation, and then I would tell them the resolution that I expect. You may even need correspond with them several times. Keep copies of everything.
Author
Thanks for the advice! =)
I’m sorry that this unfortunate incident happened to you! The help and service was just awful. Hopefully all of this will end well for you. Thanks for sharing this story and warning others about this issue.
Author
Thanks so much for taking the time to read, Jennifer!
Sorry to hear about such a harrowing experience. I used Expedia once and wasn’t crazy about it. Recently used booking.com. Will let you know how it works out. All the best. Michael
Author
Definitely let me know what you think of them! I’ve actually gotten a lot of emails from people recommending booking.com so I’ll have to check it out. Thanks so much for your recommendation!
Ohh My god,.. Its really irritating when you find something like this and the people who trust to help act like they dont care anything. Its really scary too, my twitter account was hacked and some vulgar posts and pictures were posted, But I could recover my account and delete those pictures,.. It was mini heart attack seeing some bad pictures,… So I can understand how you could have felt when you had your card and other personal information. Take care,.. i hope everything will be taken care,.. I’m deactivating my expedia account right now.
Author
<3 Thanks for sharing your personal experience with me. I appreciate the kind words, and I'm REALLY sorry your twitter account was hacked.
What a horrific experience but I think Paul S has hit the nail on the head. On the original email that advised you there had been a change you should have opened a new tab and logged in directly rather than go through the link. It was probably a scam and you gave your details to the hacker who then acted very quickly to use your points and Expedia were not to blame. It is possible hackers got hold of a list of emails to try from Expedia but it is more likely random. I have separate emails for all things financial that are never used for anything else so I don’t even get spam mail in them and the hundreds of offers and bank warnings and facebook warning emails I can ignore because they arrive at an unrelated email address I use for web surfing. I do hope you manage to get it sorted out quickly, it’s a real kick in the gut when people steal from you. They have no shame.
Author
Hi Arabella! First of all, thanks so much for taking the time to comment – I definitely appreciate your input. I see what you and Paul are saying, but I don’t believe it was a scam email – I didn’t disclose details when I changed my email back so unfortunately I believe it was an issue with Expedia. When I logged back in, he/she had already booked the trip to China and changed all of my account information. I do hope everything’s ok though – hopefully my accounts are both deactivated, and I won’t have to worry about anything.
I have had so many issues with them as well. Their customer service is HORRIBLE!!! I will never use them again. I can’t believe the company is still running.
Best of luck girl!
I experienced the same thing. I had collected US$ 195 and suddenly all disappeared with some cheap fellow made 6 night booking using that money in Thailand.
This was 2 years ago, maybe more. Since then not using Expedia but Hotels.com is part of Expedia.
Any way I can get that money back ?
Which hotel site is more reliable these days. Please advise
Author
Did you try calling their support? If yes, what did they have to tell you?