Always Good to be on Your Toes When Traveling
Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 05:20PM
Have you ever been ripped off or scammed on holiday? The London Times highlights some of the most popular ways.
* The phone rings and an electronic voice tells you to hit the number 9 to claim your prize, a holiday to the Sunshine State of Florida – at which point a salesperson comes on the line and explains that you have, in fact, won only most of a holiday. To seal the deal, you are typically told it will cost between £500 and £700 for a supposed £2,000 luxury trip, usually to Orlando and the Bahamas. If you try to get the money back, the delays begin, with calls going unanswered, packages not arriving, and staff often verbally abusing customers. And your credit-card company doesn’t have to refund you – because you read out those numbers.
* This internet scam, known as “card milling”, is on the increase. Greedy travelers are told that by spending up to £260 on a travel-agent ID card, they will become eligible for industry-insider rates, meaning huge discounts on flights, hotels and, most commonly, cruises. You cough up the credit-card details, your ID card arrives – and the first time you slap it down on a reception desk, you’re laughed out of the lobby.
* The most costly scam in the UK is the oldest one in the book – companies taking travelers’ cash, and then shutting down their businesses without delivering what they promised.
* Secreting away a traveler’s credit-card information is also quite popular. Common tricks include capturing all the details when you hand the card over for a meal or some petrol – but one ingenious new tactic, first reported in Shanghai, has been to call hotel rooms late at night, pretending to be from reception.
* There will always be occasions when you need to change cash but there’s no bank about, so more informal converters come into play. Most are perfectly legitimate, but signs that all is not well include: the teller shuffling and counting out bills in absurdly small denominations, which makes keeping score a chore; a disturbance or argument that conveniently flares up just as you’re trying to count your cash; and anything involving opaque envelopes, which will probably turn out to contain newspaper clippings.
* Many of us have been caught in the “nice” version of this scam – a friendly stranger takes you drinking in a foreign land, pays a fraction of what it’s costing you for the same round of drinks, then takes a backhander from the bar-owner at closing time for hauling your well-fleeced backsides into the establishment.
* You’re tired, there’s a queue at the taxi stand, so you accept the cheery offer of an unofficial taxi. From this point on, a good outcome is that you’ll be overcharged, or forced to stop off at the driver’s brother’s souvenir shop on the way to your hotel.
* You put your belongings on the conveyor belt at the airport, but a man bustles past you in a desperate hurry. He then gets himself held up at the detector, emptying his pockets of innumerable coins, keys and collectables. While you wait patiently, the guy who was in the queue in front of you – Mr. Metal’s accomplice – waits for your bag, then nicks
* The phone rings and an electronic voice tells you to hit the number 9 to claim your prize, a holiday to the Sunshine State of Florida – at which point a salesperson comes on the line and explains that you have, in fact, won only most of a holiday. To seal the deal, you are typically told it will cost between £500 and £700 for a supposed £2,000 luxury trip, usually to Orlando and the Bahamas. If you try to get the money back, the delays begin, with calls going unanswered, packages not arriving, and staff often verbally abusing customers. And your credit-card company doesn’t have to refund you – because you read out those numbers.
* This internet scam, known as “card milling”, is on the increase. Greedy travelers are told that by spending up to £260 on a travel-agent ID card, they will become eligible for industry-insider rates, meaning huge discounts on flights, hotels and, most commonly, cruises. You cough up the credit-card details, your ID card arrives – and the first time you slap it down on a reception desk, you’re laughed out of the lobby.
* The most costly scam in the UK is the oldest one in the book – companies taking travelers’ cash, and then shutting down their businesses without delivering what they promised.
* Secreting away a traveler’s credit-card information is also quite popular. Common tricks include capturing all the details when you hand the card over for a meal or some petrol – but one ingenious new tactic, first reported in Shanghai, has been to call hotel rooms late at night, pretending to be from reception.
* There will always be occasions when you need to change cash but there’s no bank about, so more informal converters come into play. Most are perfectly legitimate, but signs that all is not well include: the teller shuffling and counting out bills in absurdly small denominations, which makes keeping score a chore; a disturbance or argument that conveniently flares up just as you’re trying to count your cash; and anything involving opaque envelopes, which will probably turn out to contain newspaper clippings.
* Many of us have been caught in the “nice” version of this scam – a friendly stranger takes you drinking in a foreign land, pays a fraction of what it’s costing you for the same round of drinks, then takes a backhander from the bar-owner at closing time for hauling your well-fleeced backsides into the establishment.
* You’re tired, there’s a queue at the taxi stand, so you accept the cheery offer of an unofficial taxi. From this point on, a good outcome is that you’ll be overcharged, or forced to stop off at the driver’s brother’s souvenir shop on the way to your hotel.
* You put your belongings on the conveyor belt at the airport, but a man bustles past you in a desperate hurry. He then gets himself held up at the detector, emptying his pockets of innumerable coins, keys and collectables. While you wait patiently, the guy who was in the queue in front of you – Mr. Metal’s accomplice – waits for your bag, then nicks
Never hurts to be on your toes!
Pattie Mitchell, ACC
Travel Dreams
www.traveldreams.us
E-mail: traveldreams10@yahoo.com
Facebook Group: Travel Dreams ... selling travel, making dreams
Pattie Mitchell, Travel Dreams
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