The TravelUp Extortion Scam that has Britons Paying a Ransom or Losing Their Holidays

(TRAVPR.COM) UNITED KINGDOM - June 13th, 2014 - Imagine you’ve just booked your summer holiday: you buy the flights first, and then immediately start booking everything else. That just post-booking time is half the fun of a summer holiday. You just start to get excited and your holiday is full of promise. That is, until you receive a call from the travel agency you booked through asking for an additional £300 per person to ticket the flight.

Seems impossible that such an extortion scam could exist in this day and age, but this is exactly what happened to Emily Hunt and her four year old daughter. 

Hunt spent a few days looking online for the best deal on flights before booking a trip to Washington, DC for her and her daughter. On Thursday, debit card in hand, Hunt was ready to book. “I looked on Kayak, and was really happy that there were quite a few options under £600 per person. I decided to book straight away as the fares were great!”

But 90 minutes later, Hunt received what she says was a “ransom call,” demanding an additional £600 - £300 for each traveler - to have the tickets released. Hunt argued with TravelUp that she had a booking confirmation email saying that her booking was a success and that payment had been taken. TravelUp refused to honour the advertised price and said that they were cancelling Hunt’s booking, against her wishes. 

TravelUp claimed that they will refund Hunt’s money, but in the meanwhile, prices have gone up across the board. “I’m really worried that now we won’t be able to have a holiday at all. It’s really upsetting,” said Hunt.

Unfortunately for Hunt, this isn’t the first - and likely isn’t the last - time that TravelUp have pulled this exact extortion scam. TripAdvisor and other review sites are full of stories of holidaymakers who had their tickets held for ransom, or worse, had their tickets cancelled mid-trip when they didn’t pay up on TravelUps demands for more money.

Said Hunt, “I was so excited to have my summer holiday sorted. I know I should have checked out TravelUp before I bought the tickets, but I’ve been using Kayak for years and never had a problem. It honestly didn’t occur to me that they would have such a scam in their search results.”

TravelUp is currently under investigation by Action Fraud UK for fraudulent activity and the Thames Valley Police for attempted extortion.

Neither TravelUp nor Kayak had any comment when contacted through their representatives.

For more information contact:

Consumer angle: Emily Hunt
emily@skizzlegroup.com

Kayak: Charlotte Ryder
kayak@diffusionpr.com

TravelUp: Helen Beard
info@kbc-pr.com

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