Booking a holiday villa – then finding it doesn’t exist
She had become one of tens of thousands of victims of online holiday fraud, which, police revealed this week, costs families £2.2 million a year.
In a statement, the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), the City of London police and the government agency Get Safe Online warned holidaymakers to be extra vigilant when booking over the internet, whether through a travel company or via adverts on websites such as Facebook, Gumtree and Craigslist.