Avoid Travel Scams - Don’t Call Airlines or Hotels from Search Results

Don’t Call Airlines or Hotels from Google Search

Scammers are always looking for innovative strategies to scam travellers. Using Google to make innocent tourists pay has to be one of their most ingenious ways to make people lose money.

Here’s how it works: Scam websites are paying Google to rank on top search results for airlines or hotels. When someone is searching for these hotels or airlines, they are directed to the scam sites instead of the real hotel or airline sites.

Once you make contact, their fake customer support try to trick you into believing that they can book, change, or cancel existing booking. Once you give your credit card information, they charge the card. As you would imagine, this will not do anything to your real bookings.

Customers losing money like this have two problems. The scammer is getting their money and then their real bookings are not being taken care of. There are many horror stories if you look in the news: Travelers finding out later that their bookings were not canceled, they didn’t buy that airline ticket they thought they were buying, or nothing was modified as they intended. Hundreds to thousands of dollars are lost in this type of scam.

The best way to not fall for this scam is to call the airline or hotel directly from their websites. Do not call any places you get from your search results. Go to the contact page of your airline or hotel and call the contact numbers listed there.

Also, always be vigilant and use your best judgement. Make sure you are talking to the right people before handing over your personal and credit card information.