Steve Weisman is a lawyer, college professor, author, and one of the country’s leading experts in cybersecurity, identity theft, and scams. See Steve’s other Con Watch articles.
According to the classic song from the Broadway show Porgy and Bess, “Summertime and the livin’ is easy.” Unfortunately, in summertime, the scamming is also easy, as criminals perpetrate a wide variety of summer vacation related scams. Here are a few tips to help you avoid them.
HR Vacation Scam
One new scam starts with an email that appears to come from your employer’s human resources department, asking you to submit your request for vacation time. Clicking on the provided link can cause you to download dangerous malware that can steal your personal information, or lure you into providing your online credentials at work in order to grant access to your company’s computers and data.
If you get a communication that appears to come from your HR department, contact them directly through an email or phone number that you know is legitimate. Never click on a link or provide personal information in response to an email or text message unless you have confirmed that the communication is legitimate.
Booking.com Scam
This scam has been around since 2024 but appears to be getting worse this year. Like so many scams, this one starts with a phishing email. In this case, fraudsters manipulate an unsuspecting hotel employee into clicking on a link to confirm a guest’s reservation, which enables the criminal to access the hotel’s Booking.com account and obtain a list of upcoming reservations along with the email addresses of the future travelers. Then they use the hacked Booking.com management portal of the hotel to send an email to the future visitor, demanding a credit card payment. The email has the exact information about a future reservation, which makes it quite convincing.
In response to an email that appears to come from Booking.com, you can either use your Booking.com app to confirm whether the email was legitimate, call Booking.com, or go to the Help Center on the official Booking.com website. Finally, when making a payment for a reservation through Booking.com, you should only make the payment on the official website or app.
As a reminder, never use your debit card for anything other than ATM transactions because while your liability for credit card fraud is limited to no more than $50 (and I have never seen a credit card company ever charge anything for fraudulent use), your risk of loss for fraudulent use of your debit card if it is not reported immediately could result in your entire bank account being stolen.
Vacation Home Rental Scam
Renting vacation homes rather than going to hotels has been increasingly popular in recent years. There are many excellent websites such as VRBO that offer wonderful vacation homes. Many people will also go to Craigslist and other similar sites. These websites can be easy and efficient ways to find a great vacation home.
Unfortunately, they are also a great way for scam artists to steal money from unwary people. The scam usually starts with a listing that looks legitimate, and there is a good reason for that: It’s often a real online listing that has been copied by the scammer, who just substitutes their name and contact information. The price is usually very low, which attracts a lot of potential renters. The potential renters may be told that the owner is out of the country and that there are many people interested in the property, so to hold the reservation, the renter must wire money to the landlord. Wiring money is a scammer’s first choice because it is all but impossible to retrieve the funds once you find out that you have been scammed.
There are a number of red flags to look for in vacation home rental scams. First, as always, if the price is too good to be true, it usually is. Also be wary of landlords who are out of the country.
Never send your payment by a wire transfer, gift card, cryptocurrency, Zelle, Venmo, or cashier’s check. Use a credit card, PayPal, or any other payment system where you can retrieve your funds if the transaction is fraudulent. It is usually best to deal with websites that specialize in vacation homes, but you must remember that they cannot possibly monitor every listing to ensure that it is legitimate.
A great and easy way to determine if the listing is a scam is to verify the real owner of the property by going online to the tax assessor’s office of the city or town where the property is located. If it doesn’t match the name of the person attempting to rent you the home, you should not go through with the rental. You can also Google the name of the owner with the word “scam” next to their name and see if anything comes up to make you concerned.
Become a Saturday Evening Post member and enjoy unlimited access. Subscribe now
