How to avoid travel scams ahead of your summer vacation

A recent survey from McAfee Labs shows 34% of Americans have decreased trust in online travel booking, due partly to AI and deepfakes. McAfee Head of Threat Research Abhishek Karnik joins Wealth! to discuss the survey and how travelers can protect themselves ahead of their summer vacation plans.

“As people gear up for travel this year, we’re seeing 1 in 4 Americans falling victim to scams,” Karnik explains. He urges travelers to be cautious when online listings look too good to be true and says always to check if you are on official websites instead of an impersonation site.

But booking is not the only area where travelers should exercise caution. Karnik explains that there may be travel agent impersonators who will try to scam travelers while they are on vacation. These impersonators usually target tourists, so Karnik encourages everyone to research and avoid paying money up-front — especially when asked for cryptocurrency or gift card payments.

As the summer travel season heats up, Karnik’s biggest piece of advice is to “make sure you’re using trusted websites, trusted applications in your phone. Using VPN, for example, when you’re hopping onto free Wi-Fi is equally important because these are the different sort of vantage points that scammers are utilizing to take your money away.”

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This post was written by Melanie Riehl

Video Transcript

Planning on travelling this summer.

If you are, you’re probably using some online resources for booking, whether that’s for your plane or your hotel or even activities and guided tours.

We like those, but are you doing all you can to keep yourself and your money safe when you book?

A recent survey from McAfee Labs shows that 34% of Americans say their trust in online booking has decreased, mainly due to a I and deep faith.

So here to give us some tips on how to have a fun summer travel season while also staying vigilant, we’ve got Abhishek Knick, who is the McAfee head of threat research.

Abhishek, Great to have you here with us today, OK, what what are some of the common pitfalls that you see as people are really just trying to get some relaxation and and plan for summer travel, but then are also not aware of some of the vulnerabilities?

Yeah, absolutely.

Like, uh, as people get up for travel this year, you know, we’re seeing one in four Americans falling victim to scams and probably more than 25 losing $1000 or more.

So what?

They what we need to be careful about when we’re booking is online is to be cautious about those too good to be true, uh, offers, you know, which get pushed at you.

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Either they come through text messaging or through emails.

Um, the other thing that you might want to look for is impersonation website.

So when you’re booking online, you know, you want to make sure that you validate the website that you’re booking through.

There’s a lot of impersonation impersonated websites, uh, booking dot coms, you know, which are faked out photographs that might be incorrect.

Or, uh, a I generated, for example.

So you have to be cautious.

Uh, really?

Be sceptical about what you are booking when you’re booking, being cautious about what you’re looking at, OK?

And so with that in mind, how are we potentially doing on this kind of year over year?

Have have the threats increased and and ultimately, where are people taking the correct safeguards so threats will follow the people right?

I think people are getting ready for for travel season, and therefore you can see an evolution of threats in that space to assist the threats.

You have a lot of tools nowadays.

Like, you know, the malware guys.

The bad guys are leveraging air and and trying to, you know, utilise that to create automated text messages or even automated emails.

Uh, in the more extreme cases, probably not related to travel.

Sometimes you’re seeing deep fakes, uh, things like that.

So those are essentially what you want to be looking out for have a heightened level of scepticism.

Uh, when you’re travelling, you want to look at the there are two pieces to it, right?

It’s before you travel.

When you do the booking, that’s where you need to be cautious.

Which websites are you visiting?

Can you trust the, uh can you trust the website?

Uh, and be cautious of phishing scams.

So don’t give away your information to people that you don’t trust.

What about?

And then then you you have the situation where you’re travelling where you know, you might have impersonators.

Somebody faking to be a travel agent.

Uh, things like that or, you know, you scanning an incorrect QR code, which leads you to an incorrect, uh, website which scams you essentially.

What about when you’re midway and and in your travels?

Do you think you’re just bopping around enjoying vacation, and you might actually be a target.

How do you kind of spot the signs when you’re, uh, along the way, Especially if you’re in a foreign country and you might not be privy in entirety to the local language.

And that’s exactly what the scammers are looking for.

When you’re a little lost, you know, they might pose a good um they might give you a a incredible deal on travel.

Or you might show up to a website and real or or show up to a hotel and realise that, well, the hotel doesn’t exist or the Airbnb doesn’t exist.

So you might want to use, um, you know, a lot has to do with being cautious being skep don’t pay money upfront.

You know, try to see if you can, uh, use credit cards to make payments.

If you see things people asking you for gift cards or asking you for Cryptocurrency payments, I mean, those are huge red flags to start off with.

Uh, so having that heightened level of scepticism, uh, not believing, uh, you know who’s interacting with you don’t take their word, for it is extremely important and having the right tools in place as well.

You know, make sure you using trusted websites, trusted applications in your phone.

Um, you know, and using VPN.

For example, when you’re hopping on to free wi Wi Fi is equally important, because these are the different sort of, uh, vantage points that scammers are utilising to take your money away.

Great reminders there, Abhishek Karnick.

Who is the McAfee head of threat research.

Great to see you.

Thanks so much for taking the time.

Thanks, Bob.