How to avoid holiday scams

Getting into the holiday mood often goes hand-in-hand with letting your guard down. But holidaymakers are being warned to stay alert from the moment they go online to rent a property.
The City of London Police has received dozens of scams for non-existent villas and apartments. Transactions worth up to £12,000 for apartments in St Tropez and almost 70 bookings for villas in Cyprus have been revealed.
Det Supt Bob Wishart, from the City of London Police's Economic Crime Department had this to say: "As a result of the work of the NFIB (National Fraud Intelligence Bureau) we are seeing for the first time substantial numbers of people reporting villa fraud. We'd advise anyone looking to book a holiday online to use reputable websites, and look for agents who are ABTA and Atol affiliated."
There are ways to avoid the scam. Get Safe Online, a government-backed initiative to increase awareness of internet scams, says that one in three internet users failed to check the company they booked with was a member of a recognised travel association. Without official bonding, there is no way to be compensated for the loss.
Last year, a Malaga-based lettings company allegedly took payments totalling as much as £500,000 for non-existent Spanish villas. They placed adverts on two popular vacation rental websites.
The opportunity for fraud does not end there. According to research by Sainsbury's, holiday scams abroad have hit British travellers to the tune of £1.5m each year. Here are some of the most popular:

• The seat belt fine – the taxi driver demands a fine for not wearing a seat belt. He passes your money to a “policeman” he is in cahoots with, or disappears round a corner to pretend he is paying an official at the airport.
• The beachcomber – the thief watches you on the beach then takes your bag or possessions while you are swimming in the sea.
• The distraction dupe – one fraudster distracts you with a false story or by making conversation while their accomplice goes through your bag or pockets.
• The bus breakdown – the driver pretends your bus has broken down in the middle of nowhere and forces passengers to pay more money to be collected by a second bus.
• The note switch – a taxi driver or barman takes a large note from you, then switches it and shows you a smaller one, claiming you owe him or her more money.

Top Tips to stay safe:

1. When booking, check for approval from a recognised authority. Look for the ABTA logo.
2. Look for a padlock symbol in the bottom right of the browser and that the payment page url has 'https://'.The 's' stands for "secure".
3. Pay with a credit card as this offers another layer of financial protection.
4. Once abroad, keep your money and valuables in several places. Cards and cash should be in separate places too - but never in your back pocket.
5. Consider a prepaid currency card. This allows you to withdraw money from ATMs to make purchases. If it goes missing it is easy to cancel.
6. This may sound obvious, but stay vigilant and protective of your belongings.

Have you been scammed? What are your top tips for staying safe on holiday?

www.twitter.com/travelsnaija

Titanic II will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic

When one of Australia's richest men, mining tycoon Clive Palmer, announced he had commissioned Chinese company, Blue Star Line to build a replica of the Olympic-class RMS Titanic, many were asking why?
Bearing in mind that ill-fated Titanic, the largest luxury ship in its time, struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. It went down on 15 April 1912, leaving more than 1,500 people dead.
"Titanic was the ship of dreams, Titanic II is the ship where dreams come true," he said at the launch.
Both the exterior and interior of the ship will be nearly identical to its ancestor.
"It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st Century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems," he said in a statement.

Palmer is funding the project entirely on his own saying "if there's any money to be lost, it should be mine".
Passengers will have the option to buy tickets that allow them to experience first, second and third class. Mr Palmer says he plans to take full advantage of Titanic II's third class facilities.
"That'll be where the most fun will be," he said. "For me that's the great adventure. I can sit down there, have some Irish stew, talk to somebody and at night I can get up and do the Irish jig. It'll be a great place to be."
Mr Palmer said plans are in the works to provide costumes from the era of Titanic for every passenger based on what class of ticket they hold.
The intended launch date is set in 2016 and Titanic II will sail from Southampton to New York but when pressed he declined to state that the ship is "unsinkable".

culled from Travel Magazine