A new anti-fraud system to prevent travel agents such as Rita Hunter from committing crimes at different companies is set to be unveiled. It comes after convicted fraudster Hunter was jailed last week for six months for failing to repay £51,430 in compensation to travel companies she defrauded, including The Advantage Travel Partnership. The Fraud […]
Month: April 2018
Agent jailed for six months for fraud
A homeworker who defrauded The Advantage Travel Partnership has been jailed for not repaying the £33,000 she stole from the consortium. Rita Hunter, who ran Hunters Travel in Liverpool, had pleaded guilty to fraud charges and was given an 18-month suspended sentence back in 2016 and was ordered to pay back the amount. But having […]
Travel at risk from Russian cyberattacks
Travel firms, airports and airlines are among those at risk of a cyberattack by Russian hackers, a fraud expert has warned. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and the US’s Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department for Homeland Security issued a joint statement on Monday about “malicious cyber activity planned by the Russian government”. The […]
Homeworker jailed over £33,000 Advantage fraud
Rita Hunter, 63, who ran Hunters Travel in Liverpool, used former customers’ credit and debit cards for new bookings made via the consortium, only to funnel the cash into her own accounts. While many customers were able to claim the money back from their card providers, Advantage was lumbered with the bill under its obligation […]
Government finally closes sickness claims loophole
The government on Friday (April 13) announced it would fix the level of legal costs that can be claimed from package holiday sickness scams. In doing so, it shuts a loophole the industry has long said has fuelled a rise in bogus claims and risked pushing holiday prices up. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said […]
P&O Cruises issues warning over Facebook scam
Social media users have been warned against a fake Facebook page claiming to be from P&O Cruises offering a free cruise competition. The line issued an alert yesterday informing consumers that the posting was a fake. “Please be aware that the ‘golden envelope win a cruise’ is a scam and is not a P&O Cruises […]
Half of all airline website traffic comes from bad bots
Cybersecurity firm Distil Networks analyzed hundreds of billions of bad bot requests, anonymized over thousands of domains. For airlines, bad bots accounted for 43.9% of all traffic on their websites in 2017. That puts the airline sector second to only gambling websites, which had 53.9% of their traffic from bots. And it’s more than twice […]
Delta suffers cyber breach via online chat
Delta Air Lines has reported a cyber breach via an online chat service, highlighting the security risks of third-party technology providers. The breach affecting Delta occurred at IT services provider [24]7.ai between September 26 and October 12 last year. Delta said it was informed of the breach on March 28. The airline reported it on […]
Decisive move to curb claims company legal fees
Travel industry campaigning against the growing problem of bogus holiday illness claims today triggered a “decisive” government crack down. Abta, Jet2holidays and Tui all welcomed the Ministry of Justice’s action to fix the legal costs that can be claimed in package holiday sickness claims which have cost the sector millions of pounds. The action will […]
Holiday booking fraud costs holidaymakers £6.7m
As many as 4,700 unsuspecting holidaymakers and other travellers had £6.7 million stolen by fraudsters last year. The sale of airline tickets (47%) and accommodation bookings (38%) were the most common types of fraud, a new report reveals today. The average amount lost per person was more than £1,500 – up by a quarter on […]