Expedia Inc., Bellevue WA, will take a $4-6 million hit to its bottom line in its upcoming financial results. The write-off stems from reimbursements made for fraudulent credit card purchases made from the online travel service.
In a statement, the company noted a recent rise in use of illegally obtained credit cards on its site. According to the company, the credit cards were not obtained from Expedia.com, and the company’s site security and customer information database have not been compromised.
The total write-off is less than one half of one percent of the $1 billion in bookings the site has recorded to date.
Until October 1, Expedia conducted business as an operating unit of Redmond, WA-based Microsoft. For the six months ended Dec. 31, the company had net revenue of $33.1 million and gross profit of $20.4 million on gross bookings of $413 million.
