From the Book of Ecclesiastes to George Shearing and the Ray Charles Singers, folks have been reminding us “There’s nothing new under the sun.” That was my take when I started this column; many of the “latest” travel scam warnings could be from decades ago—timeshare buy-out scams, ingenious ways pickpockets try to distract you while grabbing your wallet, forcing you to buy a worthless trinket. And many more are the usual suspects of internet and smartphone scams that have been around almost as long as the internet and smartphones and can get you no matter where you are. But a few are recent enough to warrant a mention in the at least “sorta new” group.
These days, when you search online for a travel company—hotel, airline, or whatever—you expect that the search will prominently return that hotel’s or airline’s website. Not so. All too often, the top listing will be for a third-party agency. I got caught on that a few years back, when I wanted to reserve a room directly with a hotel in Inverness, Scotland, and instead was led (misled) to a hotel reservation agency site. I didn’t look carefully enough at the site’s URL.
