Family Forced to Share Living Room With 20 Tourists After Booking.com Blunder

A London family has been forced to host a group of tourists in their living room after the online lodging company Booking.com accidentally listed their home on its website. In total about 20 travelers from around the world have showed up at Karin Arsenius's southeast London home believing they'd booked a place to stay, family said. Read on to find out how it happened—and why it kept happening.

According to BBC News, Booking.com accidentally listed Arsenius's street as one where hotel rooms were available and placed a location pin on top of her house. Users then booked what they thought was a hotel room, which listed the homeowner's address.

Last Saturday, Arsenius, 37, had to create beds for three women from Argentina in her living room, the BBC reported. She and her partner had tried to remedy the situation with booking.com but had no luck. 

"They had nowhere to go and we tried all the local hotels but everything was booked out," she said. "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." "But it shouldn't ever have got that far. It should have been taken care of, even if Booking.com is put out," she added.

One of the Argentinian travelers, Sabrina Salomé Schneider, 31, said showing up at a family home instead of a hotel was 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," she said. "They're a big corporation. They should be able to afford putting a few people up."

Lisa Webb, a consumer law expert for consumer group Which, called the situation "really horrifying" for everyone involved. "Booking.com needs to take every step it has in its arsenal to make sure that, first of all, if it does happen, people are protected, people are given compensation, but secondly that these scams cannot appear on their platform at all in the first place," she told BBC News.

"[Scammers] will target individuals in any way that they can and there are very unscrupulous people doing this," she added. "There needs to be checks and balances in place, though, to make sure that it cannot happen."

In a statement, Booking.com said the company has "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 apologize and offer any support required in relation to refunds, relocations and additional fees, and we of course extend our sincere apologies to the homeowner."