Travel prize scams are attempts to trick you into parting with your money to claim a ‘reward’ such as a free or discounted holiday.

How this scam works

Travel prize scams often eventuate after you have been searching for a holiday online and sign up to receive further information. Shortly afterwards, you receive a notification by phone, text, email or post claiming that you have won a prize in the form of travel vouchers, often worth $2000 or $3000.

Alternatively, you participate in an online survey and are subsequently notified that you have won a holiday or vouchers. When you go to claim your prize, you are told that you first need to buy more travel vouchers.

The scammer presents you with an amazing offer for a heavily discounted accommodation or holiday package to a popular destination, such as Thailand, Bali or the Pacific Islands. Other scams offer holidays to Florida or the Bahamas with tickets to theme parks or cruises at greatly discounted rates. However, in reality the package or the prize doesn’t exist.

If you decide to take up this offer, you will be asked to provide your credit card and licence details before they can send you the ‘prize’. If you hand over your personal details, the scammer will quickly use these to take money from your bank account. They may also use your personal details to commit some other form of identity crime.

The promised prize or vouchers will either never arrive, or if they do, will be dishonoured when you try to redeem them. Sometimes the scammers will provide you with tickets and an itinerary but when the time to travel arrives, the tickets are useless and the business cannot be contacted.