Covid-19 And The Surge In Travel Scams
Covid-19 and the Surge in Travel Scams
Back in 2020, when the pandemic took over the world businesses as well as leisure travel got suspended for quite some time. In order to fight the deadly widespread, the government imposed restrictions that confined people to their homes, ultimately affecting their mental health. However, with the formulation of vaccines, the authorities uplifted the lockdown, and traveling became permissible with appropriate sops. Despite the ease in travel restrictions, the ratio, as yet, has not reached the pre-pandemic level. But with all of these things, covid certificate verification was much needed in this era.
Ever since the uplift of strict lockdown and ease in travel restrictions, the travel and tour industry experienced significant growth. People caged in their homes found the much-needed relief and boarded the plane of freedom. However, the relief came with a cost. Along with other industries that have been victims of the fraud, the travel and tour industry is no way behind. As much as the digital advancements have relieved the businesses, it has equally aided the scammer’s fraudulent activities.
Covid - a surge in the scams worldwide:
Although online shopping scams have targeted the most people, the travel scams are no way behind and have been reported to be the most costly. According to the FTC, the consumers, unfortunately, lost around $545 Million to covid related fraud, be it online shopping or traveling. Around 61% of the reports to the FTC agency were about the scams during the pandemic. The scammers, with their witty evil tactics, are always at their toes to take advantage of any natural disaster, be it, natural or man-made. The true statistics seem to be much higher than what's calculated. Along with the other scams, it was observed that the victims lost the most amount of money i.e. nearly $79 million to December Global Holidays and travel scams. As per the agency, most of the frauds were related to refunds and cancellations.
Statistics explaining the increase in travel scams:
This particularly took place when the travelers opened their wallets to book flights and shop for travel deals. As the scammers noticed the trend, they, like always, swooped in with their witty fraudulent tactics to scam the travelers. With the force to capitalize on the opportunity of scamming people, they quite successfully achieved their mission. In this regard, the research reported around a 4% increase in travel scams at the beginning of 2021 i.e. when the travel restrictions were relaxed.
As per Finextra, the travel industry makes up a significant portion i.e. nearly 10.2% of the global GDP. However, despite the reputable position it holds, the industry, unfortunately, incurred a huge loss due to the fraudulent activities of the scammers which cost around $12 billion every year. Considering the continuously increasing scam rates, according to a report, the ratio is expected to further increase by 20% in the years to come.
Countries Travel Risk Lists:
The travel restrictions did not only impact the leisure travelers negatively but brought adverse effects to the business as their important business meetings that were scheduled internationally could not take place. However, different countries adopted their coping mechanism to save their businesses from falling apart.
1. Businesses in Hong Kong: Hong Kong was dismayed at the travel restrictions as they adversely affected the businesses there. However, no less than two months later, people who had previously been out of the country started coming back from various countries that in return brought danger to Hong Kong. Therefore, as Delt Variant emerged, the country moved around 15 countries to the high-risk category to save the virus from spreading. Tourists and residents from those particular countries could not enter with adequate sops and stay in quarantine for a definite period.
2. Travelers complain of unfair prices and slow processing PCR tests: Randox, Uk’s largest PCR tester was reported to be overflown with unprocessed swabs and that their test kits either failed to arrive or came days later. This probably happened because the fake websites or scammers intervened with their shady tactics.
3. Fake Covid-19 Passports: Another common travel scam experienced by a majority of people was the fake covid-19 certificates by the traveling agents. A similar incident was reported in India where a 35-year-old travel agent was arrested by the police on the charges of selling fake covid-19 certificates to people who wanted to travel outside Karnataka. Upon the raid, it was discovered that the person was charging around INR 3000-4000 for each covid negative test report. Moreover, he created tons of such reports and sold them to people who wished to travel to Rajasthan and West Bengal. Since the reports had signatures of doctors, the police also went on the lookout for all the people involved in the heinous act.
