Tourism companies are now making online transactions, bookings, and pre-boarding ID verification. Therefore, fraudsters find it an attractive target to carry out travel scams. In order to prevent travel frauds, tourism companies must integrate an efficient identity verification system.
The tourism and hospitality sector is now working properly since the COVID-19 pandemic. This industry has high-value payments and services while fraudsters are always trying to breach them. It also plays an important role in the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and saw a rise of up to 6.1 percent last year.
Fraud Risks in the Travel Sector
Fraudsters bypass identity checks through multiple practices like document frauds, account takeovers, and making payments with a stolen debit or credit card. Organizations encounter a lot of travel scams that affect their credibility in the market and lower the trust level of customers.
Fake Travel Agencies Fraud
Fraudsters exploit travelers using fake online travel agencies to achieve their evil goals. There have been many cases when customers or travelers have been sold bogus airline tickets and hotel rooms that don’t exist. Fake websites are made that look and feel like real websites. These sites are used to get customers’ information by doing fake i’m feeling curious and unauthorized document verification. When customers find out that they have been scammed, compensation cannot be made.
Stolen Debit/Credit Card Fraud
Travel scams are happening in numerous ways such as making purchases of tour packages and hotels using stolen debit/credit cards. Fraudsters try to get access to these cards by getting the information directly from the customer or they simply buy it from the dark web. This is where KYC verification comes in handy by ensuring that the actual customer or cardholder is trying to make a purchase.
These payments are usually made at the last minute when the cross-verification process is not possible by travel agencies and other service providers. So, in order to prevent travel scams, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI & ML) based IDV systems must be integrated to check the presence of real-time travelers, liveness detection, and facial verification. This system will be helpful in lowering the chances of fraud without any human error.
Intentional/Insider Fraud
There are many cases where travel agents willingly provide the customer’s information to fraudsters. It is usually done to make money quickly. These stolen credit/debit cards or payment information can be used to make fraudulent purchases and bookings. In the end, the legit customer won’t be able to find the travel agent which causes trust issues.
How can Travel Scams be countered?
It is not an easy task to find travel scams as fraudsters create fake and illegal documents through software like Adobe Photoshop. Furthermore, these crooks manipulate the organization’s funds by traveling in economy class and buying game tickets or bar passes using the money. In the process of identifying travel scams, expense manipulation is the most difficult.
Integration of AI-based KYC documents verification solutions can be very helpful for organizations to prevent and save their money from being misused. Advanced technology can validate bills to monitor and identify travel scams.
What Should Travelers Do to Avoid Scams?
Travelers should be aware of the industry’s loopholes and should be vigilant while annabella stoermer coleman biography purchasing tickets or planning to travel. Travelers can opt for these practices:
- A reputable Online Travel Agency (OTA) should be considered while booking tickets
- Travelers should use the practice of Do Your Own Research (DYOR)
- Check for URLs and make secure payments
- Travelers should be very careful in the second-hand marketplace because of the higher chance of scams in it
- Always make a decision after reading reviews
Tools to Prevent Travel Scams
There are many preventive measures to discourage travel scams. Some of them are:
- AI and ML-powered systems. These are fool-proof systems and have no human error
- Automated identity verification systems
- A capable scam prevention team
These tools help companies to make their reputation and credibility strong. It will also allow these organizations to attract more customers.
Conclusion
The travel industry is very important in the modern world. So to maintain its credibility, it should always be a step ahead of fraudsters who can harm them. This would also allow them to provide a better customer experience by having secure and risk-free services.
Integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) powered identity verification systems will be very helpful in order to detect travel frauds and criminal activities. It can also do the verification of documents without any error that a human can make. As mentioned before, the travel industry contributes to the world’s GDP. Therefore, it must be integrated as soon as possible to ensure a risk-free tour.