Fraud makes travel a nightmare

You've won a free trip to sunny Cancun this July. All it will cost you is your time and sanity.

While many consumers are overjoyed to hear about fabulous travel deals and free vacations, travelers often neglect to read the fine print, research travel companies and confirm reservations before packing their bags and heading to the airport.

Such consumers often find themselves victimized by travel fraud, which ranked eighth among marketing scams in frequency last year, according to the National Consumers League (NCL).

Types of travel fraud can range from offers of supposedly free trips that never materialize to hidden costs and gross contract misrepresentations. Free trips often end up being fronts for lengthy timeshare presentations, and accommodations are much less than promised.

Many travels scams have targeted college students who are looking for spring break or summer vacations. Unfortunately, the issue of fraud by student travel groups is relatively undocumented.

"I suspect that we may not get as many complaints as there are problems out there because a lot of people wouldn't know where to complain to," explains Susan Grant, Director of Anti-Fraud Programs for the NCL.

According to Collot Guerard, an attorney for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), most problems arise because of how advertisements are worded. "Mostly it's misrepresentations," she said. "It's an exaggeration of what you're going to get." Unfortunately for many travelers who find their vacations to be less than they expected, travel companies can only be held liable for travel fraud if the misrepresentation is intentional.

There are a number of avenues that consumers can pursue in order to minimize travel fraud risk. The FTC and the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) recommend that travelers dealing with any company review their contract carefully and read the fine print. Anyone dealing with e-mails, postcards or other mailings about winning a free vacation should also be skeptical. In addition, consumers should make sure they receive complete details in writing about price and penalties in the event that they have to make changes to their vacation plans.

The next step is to research whatever travel company you're planning on using. This can be done by checking to see whether the company is a member of a good-standing business organization, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB) in the state where the company is located. According to Guerard, the BBB is also an excellent resource for researching past complaints against companies.

When paying for travel, do not give out your credit card number unless you are aware that the company you are dealing with has a sound business record. Paying with a credit card, according to Grant, is optimal over using cash or checks because it gives the consumer more rights when it comes to recovery. While most credit card companies have a 60-day time limit for resolving a dispute once a payment has been made, they often extend such limits when dealing with travel fraud.

"I think it's more than just money," says Grant. "When people are on vacation, they have a big emotional investment in it. It's something they're looking forward to, and it's not just them -- they're planning something with friends and family -- when you discover that you don't have a plane ticket or there's no hotel reserved for you, not only are you inconvenienced or out whatever money you advanced, you're really devastated because it's something you were looking for isn't going to happen."

Customers are also well advised to know their rights. According to Department of Transportation (DOT) rules, travelers are able to cancel a charter package without penalty if the travel company makes a major change. This could include a change or departure/return date or city, a hotel substitution, or a price increase of more than 10 percent.

Yet despite these limitations, travel companies are afforded some flex room. For chartered flights, which many companies use for transportation, the DOT allows companies to delay flights for up to 48 hours if mechanical difficulties occur. To make matters worse, this doesn't force the companies to even partially compensate travelers for their lost vacation time.

When taking a charter flight, the FTC also recommends that consumers call the DOT Public Charter Licensing Division to make sure that the charter operator has correctly filed to operate charter flights to and from your destination.

"Don't feel like you have to purchase immediately because of a high-pressure sales pitch," says Guerard.

"You have to be really skeptical about any travel that's promoted as free or incredibly cheap," says Grant. "There's always some sort of catch."