TripAdvisor/HolidayLettings payments

[IanW]

Anybody else having issues with TA/HL or their bank withholding payments?

I've used TA/HL as an agent for many years, and had a guest arrive last weekend. As usual, I got an email the next day to say payment had been issued and would be with me in a few days (Galling I know, but I understand why they do it).

The following day, I received an email from "TA/HL" saying that Bank of America had blocked the payment as part of their money laundering and sanction busting risk procedures and would need my full name and date of birth to "Release" the payment. The email did contain the recent booking number, but otherwise looked like a classic phishing scam.

I called HA/TL on their UK number (which goes to an office in India) who confirmed that the email was legit. I said that I wasn't happy with this. I am a verified account holder using a UK bank account they have paid into many times before over the past 10 years. I explained politely that as a UK citizen, I'm not answerable to an American bank, and if they have difficulty clearing the payment they owe me, it is not up to me to resolve the issue they are having with their bank.

This evening, I received a phone call from an Indian lady via a spoofed USA number who announced her name and that she worked for TA/HL and wanted my account number and other details to "pass security". Alarm bells ring. So I suggest she tells me something about my account that isn't in the public domain so that I can verify HER ID first.

Her exasperated response was that she had given me her name and told me who she worked for (!!) and that the call couldn't proceed without me giving her what she wanted to know.

Of course I refused, and simply reminded her that her company owed me money and that I was expecting payment ASAP.

Their attitude beggars belief.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[newtimber]

If you log-on to your TA account, and look at your account, it will ask you to verify your account and you have to fill in the details otherwise they won't pay you.