Travel is a great way to take a break from the demands of work and everyday life and recharge for a bit while exploring a new place. Unfortunately, people who decide to go on that much-deserved vacation often find themselves the targets of a sophisticated scam.
“The business of fraud has been ‘democratized,’ and travel scams have become one of the most common ways that scammers defraud consumers and businesses,” Brittany Allen, a trust and safety architect at Sift, told HuffPost. “Easy-to-access and use technologies, along with the information available on the dark web, have lowered the barrier to entry for fraud, and these cybercriminals are taking advantage.”
She noted that Sift’s Fraud Industry Benchmarking Resource found that payment fraud in the online travel and lodging industry doubled from the third quarter of 2023 to the second quarter of 2024.
“Travel scams have always been around, but with the ‘revenge travel’ after COVID, we certainly saw an increase in the ways criminals were using people’s desires to travel to steal from them,” said Amy Nofziger, the director of victim support at the AARP Fraud Watch Network. “Plus we are all on our phones 24/7 so scammers trying to steal from us have access to us more than ever. We have seen travel scams come in via text message, email and on social media.”
That’s why it’s important to be extra vigilant as you book travel arrangements and go about your trip. To help vacationers avoid scams, we asked experts to share the red flags they should watch out for.
The situation or offer seems too good to be true.
“The biggest tip-off about online or email scams is that if it’s too good to be true, it’s likely a scam,” explained Ned S. Levi, a columnist and travel scam expert with Travelers United. “That’s a well-known, long touted scam tip-off, but it still is true.”
In this age of skyrocketing travel costs, scammers try to entice unsuspecting vacationers with low offers well below market price. But remember that these “exclusive” deals are often too unrealistic to be credible.
The same goes for in-person fraud. Don’t let the lure of a low-cost car ride from the airport lead you into a bad situation with a scam driver.
“Never get in an unlicensed taxi or private vehicle other than one ordered via reputable ride sharing apps ― no matter how amazing the deal is!” warned Julian Moro, senior vice president and regional security director at International SOS.
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