New type of fraud: How do they steal money from gullible tourists?

On the eve of the summer season, there has been a significant increase in the number of fraudulent sites on the Internet offering ticket and hotel booking services, but in fact stealing money from gullible tourists.

As URA.RU reports with reference to information security specialist Andrei Starikovsky, when paying for tours, hotels and tickets on fake sites, users’ bank data ends up at the disposal of fraudsters who can, for example, steal money from the card.

The problem is that these sites often imitate legitimate booking services, and most users have a hard time telling them apart.

How to avoid being deceived?

The specialist recommends several precautions for tourists:

• Check the agency. Before booking through a travel agency, you should check its availability in the Unified Federal Register of Travel Agents (if we are talking about an agency operating in the Russian Federation).
• Be attentive to detail. Please pay attention to errors in the site address and page content. Small deviations may indicate a fake.
• Be careful with QR codes. Fraudsters are increasingly using fake QR codes, so you should be especially careful when scanning them.

With the rise of fraud in the tourism industry, especially before the summer holiday season, it is important to be extremely careful and careful when booking services online, in order to avoid financial losses and compromise of personal data.