Residents of the United Kingdom are often among the most targeted European travellers when it comes to holiday scams, and could be left thousands of pounds out of pocket by some of the more elaborate and elusive hacks.
With a summer full of sunshine upon us, travellers will no doubt be looking for cheap and easy holiday packages, searching for fun in the sun over the warmer months.
And scammers are often on hand to sell unfortunate buyers the dream, without delivering on expectations.
Read more: Nearly 3 in 4 Newcastle families have been targeted by scammers - how to avoid being conned
The Mirror reports that researchers at cyber-security firm Kaspersky say that the UK has ranked 3rd highest across Europe on both booking and airline scams. In March 2022 alone, Kaspersky identified a grand total of 1,504 phishing pages under the guise of booking and rental services in the United Kingdom.
Some of the more common holiday-themed techniques used by scammers this year are:
Fake ticket aggregators -
Most holidays begin by booking travel - usually in the form of a plane, train or boat ticket - with travellers always enthusiastic about getting their money's worth. A number of fake websites claim to offer users the chance to buy airplane tickets for slashed prices, but these are in-fact well made phishing pages designed to scam users out of money and information.
Some of which even display official details of actual flights, with experienced scammers sending research requests to flight aggregators and displaying info obtained from them. Instead of delivering on promised products like flights and rail rides, the hackers keep your money and use personal info for malice and menace.
Fake lotteries for discounted tickets -
Another means of luring the general public is via fake pages offering airplane ticket draws, lotteries and gift cards. Users of these sites are often offered the opportunity to take a small survey and enter personal details in exchange for discounts on tickets.
However, these too good to be true opportunities are nothing more, with personal information and card details being collected. What's worse is that many of these 'surveys' request users to share them amongst friends to receive prizes, which lures further victims into falling for the trap.
After all, a link shared by a friend is more tempting than one shared by a stranger. If the user then follows the link and tries to get their prize, they often find they need to pay a commission or fee first.
After this money is paid, the cybercriminals disappear – without rewarding the user.
Fake rentals -
Another top trap that scammers cast out comes in the form of fake rental services. One example of this found by Kaspersky researches included the offer of a luxury two-bed apartment close to a European capital's centre for just €500 a month. Another seemingly appealing offer came in the form of a four-bedroom house with a pool and fireplace for just €1,000 for the whole month.
The fake reviews describe amazing vacations and hospitable hosts - which are designed to put users' minds at ease, tempting them to pay for a stay. However, the bleak reality is that they end up parting ways with hard earned money with no reward.
How to keep yourself safe:
- Carefully check the address bar before entering any sensitive information, such as your login details and password. If something is wrong with the URL (i.e. spelling, it doesn’t look like the original or it uses some special symbols instead of letters) don’t enter anything on the site. If in doubt, check the certificate of the site by clicking on the lock icon to the left of the URL.
- Only book your stay and tickets through the trusted websites of trusted providers. Ideally, type the address of their website manually in the address bar.
- Don't click on links that come from unknown sources (either through e-mails, messaging apps or social networks).
- Always visit the business’ official website if you see a giveaway offered in e-mail or on social media by a travel company or an airline to confirm the giveaway exists. You should also carefully check the links the giveaway ad leads you to.
- Use a good security solution that can protect you from spam emails and phishing attacks. We recommend Kaspersky Security Cloud.
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