Free luxury holidays to Cancun, the Caribbean, Mexico, Florida, Orlando and Daytona Beach? Sound too good to be true?
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is warning consumers to be wary of telemarketing calls promising 'free' holidays.
"If consumers receive telemarketing calls promising a 'free' holiday, they should just hang up," ACCC Deputy Chair, Mr Peter Kell warned today. "It's the time of year when these sorts of offers can sound very attractive, but they could well be too good to be true."
The ACCC has recently been contacted by consumers complaining about a range of overseas based holiday telemarketing schemes.
Typically, a pre-recorded voice message instructs the recipient to dial either one or nine, to claim the 'prize'. If a consumer complies, he or she is connected to a 'travel consultant' who will then 'sell' the holiday package.
To claim the 'free' prize, approximately $600 will be charged for 'associated taxes and other fees'. The consultant will then ask the recipient to pay with a credit card.
The consultant then asks the consumer to 'confirm' that he or she has either a Mastercard or Visa Card. Commonly a recipient's personal information (such as date of birth and credit card numbers) is used to convince the consumer that the consultant is simply 'verifying' the credit card details.
"Under no circumstances should consumers provide personal information, including credit card details, to people they don't know and trust. They risk having their identity and money stolen," Mr Kell said.
"Consumers have found with some of these schemes that the holidays simply don't exist – they are scams where any money paid is lost.
"In other cases, a holiday offer may exist but it comes with a range of undisclosed fees and conditions, including the requirement to attend lengthy high pressure sales presentations for expensive vacation ownership plans."
Mr Kell noted that the ACCC offers this advice to consumers:
- hang up if you receive telemarketing calls promising 'free' holidays, gifts or prizes
- be wary of any offer that sounds too good to be true, including holiday offers
- avoid the temptation to dial on to get more details - the marketers are trained to hook people in
- if you do talk to sales staff resist pressure to sign up - especially if staff claim that the 'great deal' is only available for a limited time
- be very careful when providing personal details, including credit card details to anyone over the telephone or online. You should not provide any information to people you don't know and trust
- If you have sent money, contact the bank straight away and cancel the card or request a chargeback.
"Arranging a holiday through reputable travel agents or holiday operators with a presence in Australia, rather than someone who cold-calls you 'out of the blue', will provide better options for redress if something goes wrong," Mr Kell said.
Report
Report the matter to the ACCC's Infocentre on 1300 302 502 or electronically through the ACCC's online complaints and enquiries form available on the ACCC website.
More information
SCAMwatch, a site owned and maintained by the ACCC, provides information about scams that commonly target Australians. It provides tips and advice on how consumers can avoid being scammed and an online report a scam feature.
SCAMwatch provides more information about lotteries and competition scams (fake prizes) and phishing scams (scams which trick people into providing personal details) and how to protect against scammers.
The ACCC also produces The little black book of scams and a series of scam fact sheets which highlight a variety of scams that commonly target Australians.
These publications can be downloaded from the publications page of the ACCC website or by calling the ACCC Infocentre on 1300 302 502 to request hard copies.
For media inquiries to the ACCC Deputy Chair, Mr Peter Kell, please call Ms Lin Enright, ACCC Media, on (02) 6243 1108 or 0414 613 520.
For general inquiries, please call the Infocentre: 1300 302 502.
The ACCC provides an automatic email alert system whenever there are changes to a page or pages to which you have subscribed. To receive information from the Media Centre, please go to Media Centre, news releases and enter your email address under Notify me.