Police are investigating an online travel agency in Bristol that took payments for flights that were never booked.
Avon and Somerset Police received six complaints in 24 hours from passengers who thought they had booked flights through cheapflightsuk.info. The agency appears to have targeted customers travelling to the Indian subcontinent during Ramadan.
Some customers arrived at Heathrow to find there were no reservations under their name. One couple paid for return flights but are now stranded in Islamabad because only an outbound flight had been booked.
Police believe many of the payments were made through bank transfers rather than credit cards, which means there is unlikely to be any security or protection. The agency was not ABTA or ATOL protected.
Officers have raided the company’s two premises in Bristol, but no employees were there.
Detective constable Greg Brunt said: “The company appears to have been advertising on various television channels, and we think they have been targeting Indian and Asian travellers during Ramadan.
“We do not know whether this is a case of a company going out of business, or whether there has been any potential fraud or deliberate deception.”
Travel Weekly was unable to contact cheapflightsuk.info.
The company is unrelated to price comparison website Cheapflights.co.uk. In a statement the company said: “Cheapflights and its website have no connection at all with cheapflightsuk.info.”