How to avoid travel scams

You may have heard of travel related scams on the internet. There are companies that will take your money and give you nothing in return. Obviously this is a problem for most people. None of us want to be scammed. The problem is that scammers are very good at fooling people. There is a reason scammers are so rich; it is very easy to give someone good news and then manipulate them. They promise you the moon, ask you for a little bit of money, and then they run away. If you want to make sure you avoid travel related scams here is how you do it. These are the things you need to look out for.

A beautiful website

Yes, you read that right. A website that looks very pretty is a bad thing when it comes to travel related scams. These scammers know that in order to scam you out of your hard earned money they will need to convince you that they are a legitimate company. The problem is that they are not a legitimate company, so they cannot impress you in any way a legitimate company can. Anyone can fake a website though, and that is exactly what they do. They spend all their money on making their website to make things seem legitimate.

When you go to a real travel agency’s website though, things are very different. Don’t believe us? Visit the website of a legitimate travel company like TradeShowTravelCo. The website is very bare and it doesn’t look like the website of a big company. That’s because the travel agency has actual offices and people in the country doing the work. The website is purely for functional reasons – it is there to provide users the information they need.

Contact information

This is how most travel related scams work. You get an email or a phone call and the other person tells you that you have won a prize. They tell you that they will call you back. They do call you back, multiple times, until you send them some money.

Here is something you may have missed in the above paragraph; they never give you their contact information. At most they will give you an email address but never a number you can contact them on. If it was a legitimate travel agency there is no reason they would not give you their contact information. If you have ever worked with a travel agent or a company like TradeShowTravelCo, you will know that they give you all the contact information possible.

They want you to call them so they make it as easy as possible. If you are not being provided contact information of the person calling you, then there is something fishy going on. If they give you a number, call it and ask to talk to the person who gave you their number. If that person is there you are probably dealing with a legitimate company.