It can be hard to tell what a holiday scam looks like.
A new investigation has revealed that fake travel firms are so sophisticated that they’ve even tricked Google into believing they are real.
This has led to over 5,000 holidaymakers a year purchasing a fake holiday deal, sometimes losing out on thousands of pounds.
With one in ten Britons having been caught out, it can ruin any families perfect holiday.
The investigation by ITV Tonight found that travel firms online were shown to be fake after they had used 10,000 images of villas and hotels as their own.
One man was said to have been scammed out of £1,200, and only realising when getting to the airline desk.
Nick Cooper, the owner of accommodation website Villa Plus, remarked: “This is the first time that I’ve known, I’ve been renting villas for 30 years, that there’s been an explosion of these websites.
“We will have a lot of people turning up crying outside some of our villas, turning up expecting to have booked it and they won’t get in I’m afraid.
The investigation, which surveyed over 2,000 holidaymakers, found that reported holiday booking frauds to Action Fraud have increased by 20 per cent since last year.
It adds up to a staggering £7.2 million lost by holidaymakers.
Whilst there isn’t a lot of legislation that allows police to shut them down, it seems Google is clamping down on it.
A spokesperson from the search website told the Daily Telegraph: “If we discover sites that are breaking this policy, we quickly take appropriate action.”
