Don’t Let a Travel Scam Ruin Your Summer Vacation

Summer is one of the busiest travel seasons of the year, and scammers know it as well as anyone. While families are hunting for vacation rentals, comparing hotel rates, and watching flight prices, fraudsters are busy on the other side of the screen: posting fake listings, cloning legitimate travel sites down to the logo, and calling or texting while pretending to be an airline or a customer service rep.

Most of these scams start the same way, with something that looks like a great deal. A beachfront rental listed for hundreds less than anything comparable in the area, with an owner who needs a deposit today because "someone else is interested." A text saying there's a problem with your flight and you'll need to click a link to confirm your reservation. An email that looks exactly like the one your booking site would send, except the sender's address is off by a single character.

The good news is that a few minutes of caution is usually all it takes.

Go to the source. Before you enter payment information or send anyone money, navigate to the hotel, airline, or rental company's website yourself rather than clicking a link in an unexpected email or text. Type the address in, or use a bookmark or the company's app. Then look closely at the URL. Scammers count on you skimming past small misspellings, extra words, or unfamiliar domain endings that are typically associated with scams.

Watch how they want to be paid. Be especially cautious if someone asks you to pay by wire transfer, gift card, or peer-to-peer payment app. Those payments are difficult and often impossible to recover once they're sent, which is precisely why fraudsters prefer them. A legitimate rental owner or travel company will accept a credit card. Whenever you have the option, use one. Credit cards generally offer the strongest protection if something goes wrong.

Do a little homework on rentals. Before sending a deposit, search the property address on its own and see what comes up. Read reviews. Look for a rental history that goes back more than a few weeks. Scammers often lift photos from real listings, so it's worth running a reverse image search on a photo or two. A brand-new listing, no reviews, an unusually low price, and pressure to pay immediately is a combination worth stepping away from.

Slow down when someone rushes you. Urgency is the oldest tool in the kit. Scammers want you convinced the deal will vanish or your reservation will be canceled unless you act in the next ten minutes, because that's the only way they get you to skip the verification steps that would expose them. A legitimate business will give you time to check the details and think it over. If it doesn’t, that’s a big red flag.

One more thing worth mentioning: if you're booking travel from a hotel lobby, airport, or coffee shop, avoid entering payment information over public Wi-Fi. Use your phone's cellular data instead.

At Nuvision, protecting our members is a core part of what we do. If you get a suspicious travel message, spot a charge you don't recognize, or think you may have shared information with a scammer, contact us right away at 800-444-6327. The sooner we hear from you, the more we can do.

You can also visit our Fraud Protection Blog for more on current scams and practical steps to help keep your accounts secure. A little awareness before you book goes a long way toward making sure the only thing you bring home from vacation is a good story.