Restaurants warn of fake bookings

Spanish fine-dining restaurants are warning diners about fake booking sites that pose as real venues and ask for bank transfers. (expansion.com) The warning was published by *Expansión* on April 12, 2026, in a report on high-end restaurants in Spain that said the fraudulent pages are not official reservation channels. The report said legitimate restaurants do not ask customers to prepay a table by bank transfer. (expansion.com) The scam works by copying a restaurant’s identity online and collecting money or payment details outside the venue’s real booking system. Spain’s National Cybersecurity Institute, known as INCIBE, published a real case on November 11, 2025 in which a restaurant found an unauthorized reservation site using its name. (incibe.es) In that INCIBE case, customers arrived claiming they had booked tables that never appeared in the restaurant’s system. INCIBE said the fraudulent site asked for card data to charge the reservation and then activated a subscription the customers did not know about. (incibe.es) Restaurants are treating the problem as both a fraud risk and a reputational risk, because the customer often blames the venue first. INCIBE advised businesses to warn customers on their official websites and social-media accounts, collect evidence, contact the fake site, and report it to Google and police. (incibe.es) The timing matters because Spain’s banks and regulators are already running fresh anti-fraud campaigns around digital payments. In a post dated April 9, 2026, the Bank of Spain’s consumer portal said scams often appear when people use cards or order a bank transfer to pay for a service reservation. (clientebancario.bde.es) The Bank of Spain said fraud-prevention messages from banks repeat a basic rule: verify the origin of unexpected links and use only official channels. It also said criminals try to get customers to authorize fraudulent transactions themselves by creating urgency or impersonating a trusted contact. (clientebancario.bde.es) For diners, the practical check is simple: confirm the restaurant’s real website, booking engine, and contact details before paying anything. For restaurants, the warning is just as blunt: if a customer is asked to secure a table by bank transfer, the booking should be treated as suspect until the venue confirms it directly. (expansion.com)