A young tourist and her nine friends have lost a staggering $10,000 after arriving in Australia to find the accommodation they booked was part of a cruel scam. 

New Zealand woman Georgia Pemberton and her friends decided to travel to the Gold Coast, Queensland, for a fun vacation and to celebrate New Year's Eve. 

Ms Pemberton booked a house for the group via Bookabach - a popular New Zealand-founded online platform, which is part of Expedia Group and used for booking holiday accommodation.

The New Zealand traveller explained the listing showed a beautiful house on the water which was big enough to fit ten people.

She added the accommodation was a little bit expensive, costing $10,000 for eight days, but she did not think anything of it as the cost was being split among the ten friends and it was during a very busy time of the year. 

After paying the first deposit, Ms Pemberton said she didn't second guess the booking as communication with the host was great and everything appeared to be normal. 

The remaining balance was due on December 22, the day the group flew to the Gold Coast. 

Ms Pemberton said she was waiting for check-in instructions, but believed the host would be at the house to provide information once they arrived. 

New Zealand woman Georgia Pemberton and her nine friends were left stranded on the Gold Coast after they were scammed out of $10,0000 for a holiday rental that did not exist 

The group arrived at the accommodation and Ms Pemberton knocked on the door only to be greeted by the homeowner who had never listed her home as a holiday rental.  

'This girl comes out, and she's like, "Hi, can I help you?" And I said, "Yeah, we've booked this place on BookaBach." She goes, "I don't do Bookabach",' Ms Pemberton said. 

'My heart literally sank. What do you mean you don't do Bookabach? Who did I just pay $10,000 to?

'I showed her the photos, and she goes, "Holy s***. That is my house. I live here. This is my family home".'

The homeowner said she had previously tried to sell her house and that the scammer had taken the photos from realestate.com and used them to create the rental listing. 

While this was the first time someone had come to her home from Bookabach, she claimed she had problems in the past and had an idea of who was behind the scam. 

'The girl that came out was the same girl that was the host in the Bookabach pictures. So this scammer has taken photos of the woman from her WhatsApp and has pretended to be her,' Ms Pemberton said. 

'The girl actually lives here as well. So it's giving someone was more so scamming her, like it was personal.'