Do you research your trips online to see what the best price is or what’s out there? Travellers should be on their guard while browsing. The scammers know that there are people that are bargain hunting.
If travellers are looking at listings through a third party, they need to read reviews for the specific property, in the case of a vacation rental, for instance. Beware of listings that don’t have any reviews but had photos that looked legitimate.
If travellers are not browsing on a well-known travel site, such as Airbnb or Vrbo, they should pay close attention to the payment methods accepted. Never pay by wire transfer, cryptocurrency, or gift cards, which they often will not be able to get back.
The scammers will sometimes use the fact that something is a good deal as rationale for why they’re insisting on those forms of payments. They’ll say, you know, ‘How can we offer such a good deal? It’s because we don’t have the overhead of traditional credit cards.’
If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Fraudulent sites look “almost identical” to legitimate ones, making it very difficult to tell them apart. Those running the fake site may even add forged ratings, and vary them so they look more real.
These sites will do things like that to add credibility, because people have gotten in the habit of looking for things like ratings or looking for certain telltale signs that we all see on legitimate sites.
Try to validate that the site exists, such as checking to see whether it has been referenced in legitimate media outlets.
Fake booking sites may also use some of the same techniques as above-board businesses, like buying keywords on Google and tracking users who may be looking for those sites. That’s why if you visit one of these sites and decide not to make a transaction, you could still get a targeted ad popping up in your browser and social media a couple of hours later. It would be for the same location that you might have been researching.
Using a VPN, or virtual private network, that hides your IP address and physical location can help prevent that kind of tracking.
What can you do if you get scammed online?
If a traveller paid by credit card, they can call the credit card company and dispute the charge, which a scammer will have a much harder time justifying than a real business. For those who have booked through a reputable broker but run into an issue with the person who listed the property or other service, those platforms can typically mediate.
If you can stick to sites that have a high reputation and have safeguards in place, that’s always preferable.
