A whistle-blower has revealed how stolen personal data was used to con thousands of customers of one of the world's biggest hotel booking websites. He says he was part of a fake call centre operation which had access to personal details of customers from around the world. "Tom" - not his real name - was recruited via an international freelance telesales website. Booking.com says it is working with the police to tackle the problem. BBC Radio 4's Money Box was contacted by "Tom" after reporting on the fraud last month. He told us he was offered $12 an hour for the work and spent around 12 days in the job, sitting at his home computer.

"Tom", who asked not to be identified, said he was supplied with long lists of Booking.com customers and could manage to call around 250 in a working day. Many were foreign visitors coming to London from countries including Bangladesh, Israel, South Africa, China, Japan and India, "We were told to call up people and tell them that they'll receive an email… and if they have any questions they should get in touch with us," Tom told Money Box. "We had to say that we were calling from [the hotel into which the customer had booked] and we would send an email and it would appear that the hotel was sending them an email." The subsequent e-mail would ask for advance payment for the hotel booking with bank details which have no connection to the hotel. Customers who queried the payment demand were directed to a fraudulent phone line, where the criminals had installed staff who posed as Booking.com employees, insisting that the hotels had changed their payment policies......Read more here