How we took down 75+ fake booking sites for Nainital hotels
Fake hotel websites steal bookings and trust. Here's the simple, repeatable process we use to find them, report them and keep them down.
- Hospitality
- Brand protection
The problem
A guest searches for a hotel by name, clicks the first result that looks right, and pays an advance. The site was a copy. The money is gone — and the hotel only hears about it when an angry guest arrives with a booking it never took.
For hotels in busy destinations like Nainital, this isn't a one-off. Lookalike sites appear again and again, and every one of them costs bookings and trust. Fraudsters copy the hotel's name, logo, room photos and even its booking flow, then push guests to pay by direct transfer before anyone can check.
“The hotel only finds out when a guest arrives with a booking it never took.”
What it really costs a hotel
The lost booking is only the start. The damage spreads across the business, and most of it lands on people who did nothing wrong.
Guests lose money
They pay scammers for rooms that were never reserved.
The hotel takes the blame
Guests often blame the hotel when a fraudulent booking goes wrong.
Direct bookings suffer
Future guests hesitate to book direct when they've heard stories.
Staff time disappears
The front desk handles complaints, verifies bookings and explains the fraud.
How we find them
We monitor continuously, not once. That means watching search results and ads for the hotel's name, and new domain names that imitate it — the small spelling changes and extra words that fraudsters rely on, like adding 'partner', 'online' or the town's name to a hotel's real name.
Not every similar site is a fake. A travel blog or a listing on a legitimate booking platform is fine. So each suspicious domain is checked against the hotel's real identity before anything is reported: who registered it, what it shows, and how it asks guests to pay.
How we take them down
Each confirmed fake gets a formal complaint to the domain registrar and the hosting provider, with the evidence attached. We follow up until the site is removed — that persistence is what actually gets results.
Confirm and capture. Screenshots, domain records and payment details the fake site asks for.
Report to the right people. Registrar and hosting provider, through their formal abuse channels.
Follow up until it's gone. Then confirm the site no longer loads.
Where these sites live matters. Across the three Nainital hotels we work with, most fake sites were hosted with a small number of large providers — Hostinger and GoDaddy came up most often. Knowing each provider's abuse process, and what evidence it expects, saves days on every case.
75+
fraudulent websites identified and taken down for leading Nainital hotels so far.
Keeping them down
Takedowns aren't the end. Fraudsters re-register new names, so monitoring keeps running and each hotel gets a clear monthly report: what we found, what we removed, and what's still in progress.
Some cases take longer than others. A few sites stay up while a registrar reviews the complaint, and we keep those open, follow up and record their status rather than quietly dropping them. Out of 80 fake sites found so far, 75 are down; the rest are still being chased.
Signs a hotel website might be fake
Hotels can share these with guests — on their own website, in confirmation emails or at the front desk.
- Prices far below what the hotel normally charges
- Advance payment only by direct transfer to a personal account
- A web address with odd spellings or extra words
- A phone number that doesn't match the hotel's own
Common questions
Can every fake website be removed?
Not always. Takedown decisions are made by registrars, hosting providers and other authorities. We investigate, submit complaints and follow up, but final outcomes depend on each case.
What if a reported site stays up?
We keep the case open, follow up with the provider and document its status. Further action depends on the evidence available.
Is this only for hotels in Nainital?
No. Nainital is where we started, but we work with hospitality businesses in other locations too.
Run a hotel and worried about this? See how our brand protection works.
- Hospitality
- Brand protection
- Cybersecurity
