00:00 Nationwide Building Society has conducted a remarkable survey which shows, quite understandably
00:08 I guess, that the vast majority of us want desperately to have a holiday to look forward
00:14 to. Unfortunately, people are more susceptible to scammers with 6 out of 10 people don't
00:20 know when or how to check if a holiday company is legitimate and one in three say they wouldn't
00:27 even bother to check, they just want to get on and book that trip and that, I'm afraid,
00:33 could mean that they lose a large amount of money. Is our desire to bag a bargain making
00:39 people more vulnerable to travel and holiday scams? Well, it would appear so. According
00:45 to recent reports, hackers are increasingly targeting businesses utilising major holiday
00:51 booking sites. Their method involves sending phishing emails to hotels, tricking staff
00:56 into downloading malware onto their computers. The malware then scans for customers with
01:01 reservations allowing hackers to directly email these customers. Payments made by clients
01:08 are directed to the hackers rather than the intended hotel. This scam has proven to be
01:14 highly lucrative. Absolutely top of my list is if any organisation says to you, "Oh, I'll
01:21 tell you what, why don't you send us some money by bank transfer? We can't take card
01:26 payments at the moment." That is a really big red flag. The reason is that sending somebody
01:32 a bank transfer is just like giving them a bag full of your hard-earned cash. The money
01:38 just disappears, unlike if you pay with a credit card or a debit card where you have
01:43 some protection. So Simon, is it safe to book independently or should people stick with
01:48 well-known and trusted operators? It all depends what you're booking and how you have found
01:55 out about it. So there is an awful lot to be said for the old school business of just
02:00 walking down the high street, walking into your local friendly travel agent and booking
02:03 a proper package holiday. That way you know you are going to get gold-plated consumer
02:08 protection and you're not going to be scammed. There's also, of course, lots of perfectly
02:14 legitimate companies online and I'm always booking, but only through the sites that I
02:19 know and trust. I'll also take recommendations from people I know, friends, family, but I'm
02:26 not going to start clicking on links that I find in social media. Well, as more bookings
02:34 are made online, scams appear to be increasing in frequency. Figures from fraud reporting
02:40 agency Action Fraud show that over £50m was lost to holiday booking scams between April
02:47 2022 and April 23. That's a 41% increase on the previous year, with the summer months
02:54 seeing the most scams reported. So if you are currently booking that big summer getaway,
03:01 do take your time and do take care.
03:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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