A bogus travel agent used stolen passports to help illegal immigrants book flights to Spain. Zaman Shah, 41, formerly of Cameron Street, Burnley arrived in the UK from Afghanistan without identity documents in 1999 before eventually being granted British citizenship in 2012. But for 18 months, Shah helped Pakistani migrants flee the UK to Spain […]
Month: September 2017
Thomas Cook puts stop to 3,000 fake illness claims
The fight against fake holiday sickness claims is building momentum ahead of a government call for evidence. Amie Keeley and Ben Ireland report Thomas Cook has stopped 3,000 fake holiday sickness claims by writing to law firms warning them about fraud. The operator asked law firms handling sickness claims to review files following the rapid […]
Police probes law firms role in £50m holiday illness scam
The involvement of UK law firms in a £50 million holiday illness scam is reportedly being investigated by Scotland Yard. The disclosure came from a lawyer from a Spanish hotel group. Carolina Ruiz of Monex, a legal firm in Spain challenging hundreds of bogus sickness claims that cost the Mac Hotel Group £4 million, told […]
Collapsed Quartz Travel breached contract
The Freedom Travel Group has alleged that it discovered “significant breaches of contract” by Quartz Travel before it ceased trading last week. Notices appeared on the shop doors of Quartz Travel in York’s Heworth Road and Quartz Travel Lite in Blossom Street (formerly Amigo Travel) advising that the premises were closed, before insolvency specialist Begbies […]
Family left stranded in Spain after Facebook villa scam
A family of seven from the UK claim they lost over €800 on a Facebook scam for a villa that didn’t exist. Sheeba Gharda booked the holiday last-minute after seeing the Marbella villa advertised on Facebook and received confirmation from the owner, who claimed to be a woman called Christina Lori. The owner allegedly asked […]
Hotel sickness scam ringleader is taken into court
The heavily pregnant British expat being held in Majorca suspected of masterminding a holiday food poisoning scam was today taken to court in handcuffs. Laura Joyce, 28, and her mother Deborah Cameron, 59, were arrested at a luxury family home in the upmarket suburb of Bendinat on the Spanish island earlier this week. It has […]
Equifax Hackers Stole 200k Credit Card Accounts
Visa and MasterCard are sending confidential alerts to financial institutions across the United States this week, warning them about more than 200,000 credit cards that were stolen in the epic data breach announced last week at big-three credit bureau Equifax. At first glance, the private notices obtained by KrebsOnSecurity appear to suggest that hackers initially breached Equifax […]
Lowcost Group – reason for collapse still unknown
Administrators appointed following the collapse of Lowcosttravelgroup last summer owing tens of millions of pounds have still to establish a cause for the company going under. The latest progress report by administrators at Smith & Williamson says an investigation is continuing into the business and its various trading arms. Total claims received against against lowcosttravelgroup […]
Watchdog probes firms links with sickness claims companies
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is investigating 12 law firms it suspects of having “potentially improper links” with claims management firms in connection with holiday sickness claims. The legal firms are also being investigated over allegations of payments made for referrals of holiday sickness claims from claims companies. The SRA says it is also seeing evidence […]
YouTube video encouraging holiday sickness claims banned
A YouTube video encouraging holidaymakers to make sickness claims when they return from their trips has been banned following a complaint by ABTA. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld three complaints made by the travel association against the video, which was promoting holidaysicknessclaims.co.uk run by Manchester-based Claims Legal. The video featured a mock newsreader claiming […]
Six arrested in fake holiday sickness claim operation
Spanish police have reportedly arrested several people and seized computers in Majorca amid a massive operation against alleged fake holiday food poisoning claims. Civil Guard officers took hold of bundles of documents during court-authorised searches of properties and businesses on the island. Sources told The Mirror they believe two to three of six people reportedly […]
Beware crying wolf over holiday sickness complaints
Assuming that holiday illness complaints are a scam could be a ‘recipe for disaster’, says Professor Rodney Cartwright and Dr Esteban Delgado. “Not another client complaint of stomach upset whilst on holiday. We know it is probably another scam. Let’s ignore it for a while.” This can be a recipe for disaster. It is true […]
Deluge of fake sickness claims expected
Holidaymakers are being urged not to make false sickness compensation claims as the peak holiday season draws to a close. Abta issued the warning as unscrupulous claims firms are predicted to bombard customers returning home telling them they are “entitled” to claim from a pot of money set aside by the government or their travel […]
Sickness claims tout first to lose licence
Intelligence gathered by Claims Management Regulator (CMR) officers revealed that Preston-based Allsure Ltd had encouraged holiday-makers to “fabricate or embellish symptoms of gastric illness to get compensation”. Further evidence showed the firm had used deceptive sales scripts, exaggerating expected payouts to entice consumers, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) reported. Allsure Ltd can no longer offer […]
Travel Agent jailed for two years
Travel agent, 41, who used £26,000 from a client’s credit card to pay for other customers’ holidays wept as she was jailed for two years – after escaping prison for the same offence seven years ago A travel agent who used £26,000 that a customer was saving for his daughter’s medical treatment to reimburse other […]
Easyjet Facebook Scam
EasyJet is warning Facebook users not to be taken in by a “free flights” scam that has gone viral on the social media platform. The scam claims to offer two free tickets to everyone that participates in an online survey, in celebration of the airline’s 22nd anniversary. When users click on the link, they are […]
Muslims defrauded by dodgy Hajj tour operators
Nasir Rana, 61, was looking forward to performing his first pilgrimage to Mecca this year. The former government employee put $4,500 from his pension – a sum around three times the average annual salary in Pakistan – into a trip organised by Al-Hashmi travels. But today, as the Hajj draws to its close in the […]