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As you peruse your favorite travel apps on the hunt for the best vacation deals for spring and summer, online scammers are also searching for you. Adopting a healthy amount of skepticism can help fend off would-be scam artists. That may mean changing some of your online habits, which can be challenging, but as famous author and skeptic Isaac Asimov wrote in his novel The Naked Sun, “Victories over ingrained patterns of thought are not won in a day or a year.”
Fighting online criminals effectively may require time, trial, and a few errors, but knowing what you're up against is half the battle. I'm here to help you understand what you're up against and how to protect yourself.
3 Common Travel Scams to Watch For
To learn more about common travel scams, I spoke with Michael Bordash, senior vice president of Research and Development at Syniverse, a service that routes text messages for major cell carriers worldwide. He knows a lot about the first type of travel scam to look out for: phishing texts.
1. Fake Toll Payment Text Messages
Bordash told me that during major holiday seasons or other events when many people are expected to travel by car, scammers send thousands of text messages about unpaid toll fees.
Here's how it works: First, a scammer will send an SMS purporting to be from a toll service provider that reads, "PA Toll Services, our records show that your vehicle has an outstanding toll charge. To prevent further fees totaling $49.99, please settle the due amount of $4.69 at [REDACTED LINK]."
Don't be lured in by this false sense of exigency. "It's phishing," explained Bordash. "They're using these [messages] to trick people or to say, 'Hey, there's an urgent problem.' That's what criminals love to do. There's always something urgent you have to take care of."
The link included in the message will take you to a fake toll payment website. There, you'd enter your payment details and personal information, and the criminals would make off with both.
Below are some screenshots of phishing toll websites provided by Bordash. He told me that the websites are usually taken down pretty quickly, but they'll stay alive long enough to do damage.
(Credit: Michael Bordash/PCMag)2. "Too Good to Be True" Listings That Aren’t Real
Scammers will also lure victims by posting fake ads on vacation rental sites using stolen or AI-generated media. Criminals can whip up fake websites, fake accommodation photos, and even fake travel agents using third-party tools that operate outside the content-generation restrictions imposed by OpenAI or Microsoft.
The ads for these sites often feature deeply discounted accommodation prices in popular vacation hotspots. Clicking on a link in the listing may send you to a fake booking website that infects your device with malware or simply collects your banking details and other personal information. When you arrive at the address for your supposed vacation, the scammer (and often, your money) is long gone.
3. Fake Government Sites and Travel Document Fraud
If you need an international visa, a passport, or another travel document in a hurry, beware of scammers who take advantage of desperate travelers. This year, the FTC warns travelers about fake government websites that charge high fees for free services and offer nonexistent services, such as entry to a so-called "visa lottery". Be wary of any organizations offering expedited border crossing or ways to bypass border security, and if you're applying for an international driver's permit, make sure you get it from your destination country's official website.
The Psychology Behind Travel Scams
The travel scam examples above are classic social engineering scams. The scammers behind the crimes prey on your natural social instincts to trick you into giving up information or money.
When I interviewed Abhishek Karnik, McAfee's head of threat intelligence research, he told me that the best social engineers know how to quickly and seamlessly elicit trust from their targets. He recommends maintaining a base level of skepticism when browsing online, whether you're trying to book a hotel room or looking for vacation packages online. Karnik also warned that generative AI-powered software adds a new, somewhat scary obstacle when dodging travel scams.
"In today's day and age, seeing and hearing is not believing in many cases," said Karnik. That's because new tools powered by generative AI can create a deepfake of a person using a photo, a short video clip, or a few minutes of audio.
Ben Jacob, a senior security researcher at SecureWorks, knows a lot about generative AI scamming using video and voice deepfakes. During our video call, he used a short video clip taken from his company's YouTube channel to generate an audio clone of himself. A three-minute video sample produced a believable deepfake of Jacob's voice, complete with a slight French accent.
Scammers can use real people's photos, videos, and voices to help make their vacation booking posts and other travel-related scams appear more believable. "Everybody has a Facebook profile with pictures that can be animated," Jacob said. "People have videos on YouTube or even LinkedIn profile photos. It should be concerning for everybody."
How to Protect Yourself When Booking Travel Online
Ultimately, it's up to all of us to protect ourselves and use caution when interacting online, especially during peak shopping and travel seasons. Use a password manager to store your login information for every website, examine the website address bar to verify you are booking with a legitimate company, do a reverse image search for listing photos on vacation booking sites, and read reviews of the property or website before booking.
Another defense strategy is to become familiar with common social engineering tactics to fend off travel scammers. Romance scammers and tax season scammers are great at using high-pressure sales tactics to lure people by being overly affectionate or overly familiar with their targets while offering deals that are too good to pass up (and too good to be true).
Embrace your inner skeptic, even if it dims your optimism a little. If that all-inclusive vacation deal seems too good to be true, keep scrolling. If your gut tells you something is wrong with a vacation listing, or that the salesperson's voice on the phone doesn't sound quite right, or that the syntax of the text you received doesn't make sense, don't ignore that feeling. Slowing down and listening to your intuition while shopping online for travel deals can help you avoid sneaky social engineering strategies. While you're still tuning up your gut instincts, check out our list of top scam protection tools. Some services are free, and you can check links for potential phishing or malware before you click them.