Be careful when using online travel services

The strong development of the 4.0 revolution has made online travel and independent travel increasingly become a trend chosen by many tourists. Instead of looking to buy package tours as before, a large number of tourists are forming the habit of choosing to buy individual services online such as accommodation, air tickets, entertainment tickets, etc. to increase their initiative in arranging their schedules. However, the strong development of online travel and independent travel has also led to fraudulent tricks in buying and selling tourism services and products in the digital environment.

You should check and carefully research information about promotional programs before choosing a product.

Recently, the incident female tourist cheated A customer lost more than 1 billion VND when booking accommodation services through a fake blue-tick fanpage (authentication stamp) of a resort in Ninh Binh, causing a stir in public opinion. After transferring the room reservation, the customer was informed that the content was transferred incorrectly and asked to transfer the money back so that the accounting department could confirm and get back the excess amount. Next, the scammer used many ways to manipulate the psychology, distract and lead the customer to perform a series of operations such as activating the VNPAY wallet, entering the code sent by the subject, verifying the face many times... After losing more than 1 billion VND, the tourist realized that he was the victim of a scam.

The trick of the subjects is to create fake fanpages with the same name, posting the same content as the main fanpage to deceive tourists. When consulting on services, the subjects do not hesitate to offer attractive promotions such as discounts, free meals, entertainment tickets, free shuttle services... to appeal to the psychology of wanting cheap prices, stimulating tourists to transfer money in advance. The subjects also do not hesitate to invest in advertising, buying followers, buying reviews, comments on fake fanpages, even creating accounts under the company's name to gain the trust of customers. Therefore, if not alert, tourists can easily be deceived.

Travel experts say that to avoid these scam In the digital environment, each tourist needs to equip themselves with knowledge and skills to become smart consumers capable of protecting their own rights.

The Department of Information Security (Ministry of Information and Communications) recommends that people need to check and verify information about location and facilities; carefully check the origin of the account; the background and reputation of the subject. In case of becoming a victim of fraud, people need to immediately report to the police for timely support and resolution.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has just issued a document requesting local tourism management agencies to increase propaganda to tourism service businesses and people to understand new forms and tricks of fraud in the tourism sector; recommending people to carefully research information about tourism service providers in general and tourist accommodation establishments in particular before booking services and making payment transactions; at the same time, providing information about establishments with business registration in the area so that people and tourists know and book services...

Faced with the widespread situation of fake travel fanpages, tricks to cheat tourists in buying services are becoming more and more popular, seriously affecting the trust and interests of tourists as well as the reputation and image of genuine travel agencies, it is necessary to have closer involvement and coordination of the tourism industry, media and police to control the situation, detect and severely punish violators; and to disseminate detailed information about what should/should not be done when making online transactions to purchase services.

Tourism units need to regularly give recommendations, guide customers and provide widespread information about the business on mass media to increase recognition and contact methods for tourists who need to use services and products...

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