Cyber Crime Message – Holiday Scam Awareness

As it is holiday season, many people are now searching online for holidays both at home and abroad. Package Holidays, City Breaks, Cruises and home grown vacations are at the centre of holiday bookings.

Online Booking

Online travel bookings amount to 70% of bookings worldwide with a market share of approximately €7 trillion globally. It is expected that by 2028, over 78% of incoming Irish tourism bookings will happen online with a net worth of around €5.7billion. 

We spent 2.5million collective nights in hotels and 2.7 in B&B and other accommodation in Ireland in the third quarter of 2023 at an average cost of 100 per night. At the same time we spent 4 million overnights abroad in the same period on business, visiting friends or on holidays.

 Source: CSO 2023

Criminal Abuse of Online Holiday Bookings

Criminals now see this as a lucrative source of illegal income and have devised clever and convincing ways to defraud customers. The average cost of an online holiday scam is €2500.

• Ghost Brokering where they post ‘sponsored’ adverts that offer special deals of package or accommodation offers. Customers enter their details on a dedicated webpage and then are contacted via social media with special deals created from their request which makes them trust the offer and purchase in full or send bank details to confirm.
• Fake offers of accommodation on social media with images and details scrapped from previous adverts. Special deals at knockdown prices or a recent cancellation selling cheap: “Just send your payment before it’s gone.”
• An idyllic getaway at a charming location – cheap as chips. “Just pay the seller directly to get the best price. “
• Fake competition offers of free flights or holidays where you are asked to share the message and then enter your details on a linked website.
• Last minute availability for the holiday everyone wants. “Just contact the seller directly by email and pay them directly too.”
• Site squatting where a fraudster registers a website similar to a trusted one and scrapes their content to create a fake site offering the same or similar content, that doesn’t exist.

Source: Trend Micro 2023

Purpose of Online Booking Fraud

These types of scams have two intentions.

• Entice you to buy a non-existent holiday and pay directly to the scammer or via money transfer so the other individual is difficult to trace or the money is gone quickly.
• Entice you to enter private banking details on a fake page or share them via social media or email so the other party can then access your account and clean it out.

Fraud Prevention Advice:

• Is the price unbelievable or a ‘don’t miss it’ offer – be careful of these offers that are probably too good to be true
• Check the website spelling and address – is it www.airbnb.com or is it www.airbnb.Irl.com which doesn’t exist. Is it what it should be or what you would expect it to be?
• Check ITAA (Irish Travel Agents Association) or for the Tour Operators Licence of the seller. Check with ITAA or Failte Ireland to see if they are actually licenced or registered, or if they are known fraudulent sites and offers.
• If it’s in a link in an email or social media message, hover over the link first. Does it go where it should?
• Copy out a few of the images on the offer or page and google image search them to see if they have been used before.
• Check for reviews for the site, the location and especially the seller. Are they good or equally important, are there none?
• Check the page or communication for language or spelling mistakes but remember AI has made it easier to ensure these don’t occur so the absence of any doesn’t mean it’s legitimate.
• When you are paying online check the website has the https:// link. While this doesn’t guarantee the page is legitimate, it does confirm that payments are secure and encrypted.
• Does the website have a physical contact address and number or chat service? Check the physical address on Google maps to see if it is correct or actually exists.
• Be careful about checking up holidays or sending private details including payment details using a public Wi-Fi that can be sniffed online.
• If you need a visa to enter the country you intend visiting, make sure you use the official website to obtain the visa. Just because it is first in the list of sites when you search doesn’t mean it is official.
• If it’s a competition for flights, don’t provide personal details on the linked website. Check the link first and be careful what you share.
• Fake emails telling you to confirm your flight by clicking on a link. The message usually doesn’t specify where or when you are travelling but generically tells you to confirm your upcoming holiday by following the link. Only use the official website or App to confirm any part of your holiday.
• Never make full payment in advance and never by direct payment or money transfer. Always pay in stages and insist on paying by card which brings security and peace of mind.

Home Grown Holiday Scams

These are the scams we are seeing at home for visitors to our own towns and hotels, apart from the fake accommodation offers.

• Photo scams – ask you to take a photo and they drop the camera and blame you. Demand you pay to replace it
• Rubbish Scams – someone throws rubbish or spray fake bird dropping on you and a kind person offers to help you clean up – pickpocket
• Rare Artefacts scams – offering to sell you a rare genuine artefact: especially at historic sites.