Online Scammers Con Travel Agencies out of Cash and Tickets
Travel agencies beware: African con artists appear to turning their attention your way.
After hitting “several” agencies in India, scammers fleeced Scholastica Travel of Greensburg, PA, out of $30,000 last week, according to a report on TribLive.com.
Employees at Scholastica responded to two emails that appeared to be from the agency’s CEO Natalie Rice, directing them to wire $9,540 and then $21,610 to a bank in Chicago. When they complied, the money was immediately transferred to a bank in Africa.
When two more emails came in, with directions to send another $30,000 and $50,000, co-workers got suspicious, stopped the transactions, and called the police.
In India, meanwhile, the Travel Agents’ Federation of India has issued a warning to all its member to beware of scammers, who already have duped “several” agencies into booking airline tickets for them by pretending to be corporate clients. The scammers used email addresses just a letter or two different from those of the agencies’ existing clients to order tickets.
–Cheryl Rosen
