Is our desire to bag a bargain making people more vulnerable to travel and holiday scams? According to recent reports, hackers are increasingly targeting businesses utilising major holiday booking sites. Their method involves sending phishing emails to hotels, tricking staff into downloading malware onto their computers. The malware then scans for customers with reservations, allowing hackers to directly email these customers. Payments made by clients are directed to the hackers, rather than the intended hotel.
As more bookings are made online scams appear to be increasing in frequency. Figures from fraud reporting agency Action Fraud show that over £15 million was lost to holiday booking scams between April 2022 and April 2023 – a 41% increase on the previous year – with the summer months seeing the most scams reported.
As more bookings are made online scams appear to be increasing in frequency. Figures from fraud reporting agency Action Fraud show that over £15 million was lost to holiday booking scams between April 2022 and April 2023 – a 41% increase on the previous year – with the summer months seeing the most scams reported.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Nationwide Building Society has conducted a remarkable survey which shows, quite understandably
00:08 I guess, that the vast majority of us want desperately to have a holiday to look forward
00:14 to. Unfortunately, people are more susceptible to scammers with 6 out of 10 people don't
00:20 know when or how to check if a holiday company is legitimate and one in three say they wouldn't
00:27 even bother to check, they just want to get on and book that trip and that, I'm afraid,
00:33 could mean that they lose a large amount of money. Is our desire to bag a bargain making
00:39 people more vulnerable to travel and holiday scams? Well, it would appear so. According
00:45 to recent reports, hackers are increasingly targeting businesses utilising major holiday
00:51 booking sites. Their method involves sending phishing emails to hotels, tricking staff
00:56 into downloading malware onto their computers. The malware then scans for customers with
01:01 reservations allowing hackers to directly email these customers. Payments made by clients
01:08 are directed to the hackers rather than the intended hotel. This scam has proven to be
01:14 highly lucrative. Absolutely top of my list is if any organisation says to you, "Oh, I'll
01:21 tell you what, why don't you send us some money by bank transfer? We can't take card
01:26 payments at the moment." That is a really big red flag. The reason is that sending somebody
01:32 a bank transfer is just like giving them a bag full of your hard-earned cash. The money
01:38 just disappears, unlike if you pay with a credit card or a debit card where you have
01:43 some protection. So Simon, is it safe to book independently or should people stick with
01:48 well-known and trusted operators? It all depends what you're booking and how you have found
01:55 out about it. So there is an awful lot to be said for the old school business of just
02:00 walking down the high street, walking into your local friendly travel agent and booking
02:03 a proper package holiday. That way you know you are going to get gold-plated consumer
02:08 protection and you're not going to be scammed. There's also, of course, lots of perfectly
02:14 legitimate companies online and I'm always booking, but only through the sites that I
02:19 know and trust. I'll also take recommendations from people I know, friends, family, but I'm
02:26 not going to start clicking on links that I find in social media. Well, as more bookings
02:34 are made online, scams appear to be increasing in frequency. Figures from fraud reporting
02:40 agency Action Fraud show that over £50m was lost to holiday booking scams between April
02:47 2022 and April 23. That's a 41% increase on the previous year, with the summer months
02:54 seeing the most scams reported. So if you are currently booking that big summer getaway,
03:01 do take your time and do take care.
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