A travel agent took money for a cruise, a destination wedding, and a large family birthday trip — and, police say, the bookings didn’t exist or weren’t ever paid to travel providers. Now travelers are out $53,000.
The woman is accused of taking clients money for trips and then not actually booking what was promised and not issuing refunds.
Charges are three counts of Grand Larceny, three counts of Scheme to Defraud, and two counts of Grand Larceny. The agent has a Better Business Bureau rating of “F.”
I just wrote a couple of weeks ago about a travel agent that took payments from 104 high school families for a nine day Europe trip (at least $3,550 per student) but went out of business taking the money with them.
Some families clawed money back via credit-card disputes, but $181,800 was still reportedly owed to 43 people by late summer. Authorities issued a warrant, he was arrested in California, extradited, and when he arrived at Daytona Beach airport in Florida under escort, students and parents confronted him and shouted “scumbag.” Investigators say he confessed, though he previously claimed he’d been wiped out by an investment fraud and refunded what he could.
Here’s another travel agency that took customer money and didn’t actually book travel. A lot of the economy runs on trust. You pay someone to act as an intermediary and just trust they’re going to do what they promised. But that isn’t always true!
I had an insurance broker who charged for insurance, but didn’t actually pay for the insurance. He’d send out a binder, and then an actual policy, and you didn’t know anything was amiss until receiving a cancellation for nonpayment notice in the mail. “Whoops, accounting screwup, sorry we’ll fix it” and he’d send paperwork showing the policy was in force when it apparently wasn’t.
I wound up winning a dispute with my credit card company, but not until after the agent fought the chargeback claiming that since I received coverage during the short binder period (due to his fraud) I shouldn’t be entitled to a refund.
