对不起，此内容只适用于美式英文。

So it’s July, the start of summer holidays of 2019. We are all planning our vacation ahead, personally the tellows team really wants to visit Portugal, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina… We only hope the holiday could be longer! Anyway, tellows hopes that besides enjoying your holiday, you don’t fall victim to a vacation phone scam! Let’s check out the following Vacation phone scam together.

In UK, according to a survey from ABTA – The Travel Association, Action Fraud and Get Safe Online, over 5000 people with an estimated over £7M in losses was recorded in 2018. The scammers usually targeted their victims via email, phone call and online. The average amount of loss is £1380 per person.

How the vacation phone scam works:

The most common phone scam of the holidays is the free vacation scam.

1. The vacation scam usually starts with a robocall, you will receive a voice message which indicates that you have won a free vacation.
2. The free vacation you won is incredibly luxurious, such as big named hotels and a free buffet.
3. You are asked to pay processing fees and hidden taxes for the trip via bank transfer and etc.
4. Once you pay the fees required, the scammer vanishes.

The other one is the free hotel scam, which is very similar to the one above. The only difference is that the scammer pretends to be from big hotels, and calls to offer you a free stay. After announcing your free stay at a nice hotel, they will start their promotion which is unrelated to the offer. Before the call ends, scammers will ask you to buy their service or products / for your personal information or financial details.

How to avoid the vacation scam

To avoid falling victim to vacation scam, here are several things you can do:

1. Say no to robocalls: when receiving a voice message saying you have won a free trip, please hang up.
2. Check out the Holiday fraud and report the number to Action Fraud and ABTA – The Travel Association.
3. Rate and comment the number on tellows, we can protect each other by sharing information.

tellows hopes you have a wonderful summer holiday! Download our app to avoid the scammers, visit App store or Google play. We lately join Product Hunt, check it out and give us an upvote there:)

tellows team