Anti-fraud group Profit has issued a plea to travel companies for help on a ‘booking interception’ scam.
The group has recently been contacted by several travel agents about clients who had already paid for bookings but who were subsequently approached by a deceptive third party.
Agents said clients had been charged by the third party for services included in the booking, unaware the company was not part of the agency they had originally booked with.
The scam appears to have affected airline and hotel bookings.
Recent examples flagged to Profit include airline seat selection pages being blocked before a third party pops up on the website as an ‘authorised agent’ to charge to book the seat.
Another is where a customer arrives at their hotel to be told the room has been incorrectly booked, such as for a different date. When the customer searches online for the agent’s customer service details, they instead find themselves dealing with a third party which rebooks the room but later takes a sum of money from the client’s card in an unauthorised transaction.
Profit chairman Barry Gooch urged firms whose customers have reported a similar experience to get in touch, with a view to investigating further as increasing numbers of cases indicate the issue could be more widespread than first thought.
“I really need to know how widespread this is,” said Gooch.
“I’m aware of 20 to 30 similar cases. This appears to be a complex crime and I suspect some travel companies may not even be aware it is happening to their clients.”
An Oxfordshire agency said a staff member had a similar experience before Christmas. While trying to book a flight seat allocation online, the employee received a call from someone claiming to be from the airline to take payment.
The agent said: “This is incredibly concerning. How many others may be targeted by this?”
It follows reports by The Travel Network Group in May 2024 of the increasing threat of fraudulent airline websites. The group issued urgent advice after two members were targeted by sites posing as “legitimate airline booking portals”.
The Advantage Travel Partnership said it had not received any recent scam reports by members. Chief operating officer Paul Nunn said: “We’ve been made aware of this scam by Profit and subsequently passed the details on to members.”
To contact Profit, email: contactus@profit.uk.com