Something interesting happened to me in the last few days. To my knowledge, this seems to be a scam, and to be something relatively new, so I want to share the information.
Here is the context. I will be a keynote speaker at a conference in Asia in a few months, and out of the blue, a company that appeared to be based in the Netherlands contacted me a few days ago by email offering to arrange my hotel accommodation. At first, the email from “ExploreEra Reservations” (reservation.nl@exploreera.info) looked very professional. They mentioned the conference location and month, and politely asked for my exact arrival and departure dates to reserve my hotel room. Their email was worded in the kind of tone you might expect from a real conference travel desk. Here is a screenshot:
But there was some red flag already in this e-mail, such as indicating that they require 30 days to cancel the reservation, which is highly unusual. In fact, a hotel reservation can in general be cancelled in 24 hours for most hotels without fees. But I still responded with basic details about my dates to see what they would say. In the follow-up email, there was more serious red flags. Here is a screenshot:
At about the same time as this, in a separated e-mail, they sent me a PandaDoc form for a hotel booking with a proposed rate of €200 per night, while also asking for personal information and a signature, and there was a weird disclaimer in small print indicating that they are not affiliated to the conference (very suspicious!), and there are HUGE cancellation fees:
Thus, I decided to investigate this. I Googled the proposed hotel name and found that their real rate is more like 20-50 euros per night on Booking DOT com, not 199 euros.
Then, I googled their organization — ExploreEra.info — and quickly discovered that at least two conferences have issued very serious warnings about emails from this domain approaching their attendees to book hotels on their behalf without authorization.
For example, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) posted an alert noting that emails from ExploreEra.info have been contacting their delegates, pretending to arrange accommodation on behalf of the conference. Here is a screenshot of this warning:
Another event also issued a similar warning:
So, is this a scam? Well, in the emails I have received, they never mentioned directly that they work for the conference, but the emails are worded in a way that gives this impression. And based on the above warnings from other conferences, and the apparently inflated price and 30 days cancellation policy, it seems indeed to be a scam. Thus, be warned!
By the way, there are several messages on Twitter warning about similar schemes, although I dont know if it is from the same people:
