Travel fraud cost UK holidaymakers £11.5 million in 2015

THE ASSOCIATION OF BRITISH TRAVEL AGENTS (ABTA), the City of London Police, and Get Safe Online have joined forces to warn consumers about the dangers posed by holiday booking fraud. #Scams are more frequent due to the rise of online bookings 

Findings in a report by the City of London Police’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau reveal the scale of reported crime and expose tactics used by fraudsters who stole £11.5 million from holidaymakers and other travellers in 2015.

According to the report, there has been a rise of 425% in the amount reported lost to travel fraudsters – up to £11.5 million in 2015 from £2.2 million in 2014 – although part of the increase is likely to be due to crime previously going unreported.

The most common fraud type relates to the sale of airline tickets, but there has also been a large increase in the number of owner accounts being hacked into on popular sharing accommodation websites.

Losses for individuals can be substantial, with the average loss being almost £3,000. Almost half of victims (44%) said the fraud had also had a significant adverse impact on their health.

There are distinct spikes of reported fraud in the summer months and in December, indicating fraudsters are targeting holidaymakers and people booking last-minute flights home for Christmas. The majority of those who are defrauded pay by methods such as bank transfer or cash with no means of getting their money back.

The most common types are:

Holiday accommodation – Fraudsters are making full use of the internet to con holidaymakers by setting up fake websites, hacking into legitimate accounts and posting fake adverts on websites and social media.

Airline tickets – where a customer believes they are booking a flight and receives a fake ticket or pays for a ticket that never turns up. In 2015, flights to Nigeria, India, and Pakistan were particularly targeted.

Sports and religious trips – a popular target for fraud due to limited availability of tickets and consequently higher prices. It is anticipated that in 2016, both the European Football Championships in France and the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will attract fraudsters.

Timeshares and holiday clubs – The sums involved with this form of fraud are particularly high, with victims losing between £9,000 and £35,000 each.

The City of London Police, ABTA, and Get Safe Online have published advice on how to avoid becoming a victim of holiday booking fraud – and on how victims should go about reporting it. This advice includes:

Stay safe online:  Check that the web address is legitimate and has not been altered by slight changes to a domain name – such as going from .co.uk to .org

Do your research: Don’t rely on one review – do a thorough online search to check the company’s credentials. If a company is defrauding people there is a good chance that consumers will post details of their experiences, and warnings about the company.

Look for the logo: Check whether the company is a member of a recognized trade body such as ABTA. If you have any doubts, you can verify membership of ABTA online, at www.abta.com.

Pay safe: Never pay directly into an owner’s bank account. Paying by direct bank transfer is like paying by cash – the money is very difficult to trace and is not refundable. Wherever possible, pay by credit card (or a debit card that offers protection).

Check paperwork: Study receipts, invoices, and terms and conditions, and be very wary of any companies that don’t provide any at all. When booking through a holiday club or timeshare, get the contract vetted by a solicitor before signing up.

Use your instincts: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Report it: Victims should contact Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or register via www.actionfraud.police.uk.


Go Holiday news : www.govillasandcottages.co.uk

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If it looks too good to be true …

NO sooner than the season of goodwill is done and dusted, comes the season of ill will in the shape of a variety scams, delivered by e-mail and traditional post and carefully designed to catch the unwary and the gullible. 

The post-Christmas/New Year weeks bring forth torrents of marketing e-mails. Some of them offer genuine bargains, including big discounts on holidays and travel deals, but as we rush to clear junk out of our in-boxes, it’s all too easy for individuals and companies to be sucked into wallet-shrivelling traps.

Here are some that we’ve seen in the opening weeks of 2015:

1. A letter was sent by conventional post to a British company about something called the UK Corporate Portal 2015. From this month, the way in which Value Added Tax (VAT) is recorded for inter European Union (EU) state transactions has changed. A company’s VAT number must be included in all of its documentation. The letter – which looks as if it’s come from a government department – offers businesses a seemingly smart way to eliminate the mountain of paperwork that would otherwise be generated by the new EU regulation.

Too good to be true? Possibly. The letter is not in fact from a government department. Go right down to the bottom of the second page, and you’ll see that it’s from an internet publishing company in Hamburg, Germany. It’s where you’ll also see a paragraph stating that by accepting the deal and signing your authorization, you are agreeing to pay them an annual fee of £797 on a continuing basis. Curiously, whether or not this includes VAT is not specified, and they reserve the right to change the required payment at their discretion.

So, if you get a two-page letter which has a barcode where a letterhead should be, and has the sender’s name and address (TW Tele Verzeichnis Verlag GmbH, Borsteler Chaussee 85-99a, D-22453 Hamburg) in small print at the bottom of the first page, we suggest you pause ensure that you do not sign up to something that you might not need, and very probably will not provide any benefits for your company.

2. What could be better than a post-Xmas payment, out of the blue, of £17,195.98p? 

This was the promise in an e-mail received by a Go Holiday executive on January 6. It was addressed to Dear all, and signed by Osborn, Senior Accountant. There is no ’phone number, no postal address, and this alleged senior accountant doesn’t have a first name. That the name of the current Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) in Britain is George Osborne might or might not be a co-incidence. Clearly, the e-mail is a scam. Open the attachment to learn about the ££££s that – surprise, surprise! –have been paid into your bank account, and you say hello to a virus that renders your computer/phone/tablet unusable other than to receive another e-mail offering you very expensive virus-clearing software. It’s the 21st century version of a protection money racket.

3. A similar scam is the e-mail – normally with no telephone numbers, but lots of spelling and grammatical errors – that purports in Britain to come from the government’s tax office (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs). It tells the very lucky recipient that he or she has been awarded millions of ££££s, either as some sort of ‘gift’ or as a refund of overpaid tax. All you have to do is open the attachment and give your bank account details to the sender … and what you do get is either a computer virus or a bank balance reduced to £0.

If it looks too good to be true, it almost always is.

Go Holiday news : www.govillasandcottages.co.uk
All your holiday needs: IN PRINT - ON-LINE - DiGiMAG - SMARTPHONE -TABLET - BLOG - TWITTER - G+ - FACEBOOK

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