It’s common sense to keep your credit cards and the rest of the contents of your wallet in a safe place while you’re overseas, but other tricks might require you to have your wits about you a little more. Scammers operate everywhere, but make sure you don’t let your relaxed holiday mood allow you to come unstuck by any of these cons:
Photo by: epSos.de on Flickr
A Fake Call from the Front Desk
If you happen to be woken up in the night by a call claiming to be from the front desk be careful before disclosing any information. Tricksters will typically claim they need to verify your credit card details due to a computer glitch or similar problem and will hope the strange circumstances will lead you to handing these over. Chances are the caller doesn’t work at the hotel at all and is hoping to run a bill using your plastic before you get out of bed in the morning. Remember to never give out your details over the telephone unless you’re absolutely certain of who you’re dealing with.
ATM Skimmers
If you’ve made a successful credit card application prior to your break then you might be best avoiding using ATM’s completely while you’re abroad. For one thing many lenders will charge you withdrawing cash and secondly if you’re unfamiliar with the country’s cash points you could more easily fall foul of a skimming device. This is attached to the machine and will steal your card data, leaving you open to fraud.
Photo by: nist6dh on Flickr
Unexpected Fees
When factoring the cost of a holiday, you’ll probably have a rough idea of how much you have to spare while at the destination. But if you set off unprepared you might find yourself paying a number of small fees that you hadn’t counted on. These could come from the airline, the travel company or the hotel, so always ask and check the small print to find out if the price you’ve paid covers everything you expect it to.
Statistics from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau recently suggested that more than 1,000 different holiday scams were used last year on British holidaymaker. With that in mind, always think twice before handing over your credit card details and remember that if an offer seems too good to be true, chances are it is.
