Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Stacey Hyde and I'm back for another episode
of Better Financial Health in 15 Minutes or Less, and today
I'd like to talk about how we get ready for summer vacation
and how to avoid scams deals that are too good to be true.
So the key thing to keep in mind is deals that are too good
to be true usually are Pay attention.
You may get an email that looks like it's from Southwest or
Expedia or some other large travel site telling you to book
now, book immediately, and you click a link and it takes you to
a site and it looks similar.
But protect yourself.
Go to the regular site and type it into your browser and see if
the same deals available there.
That's a quick way to check.
The other thing to keep in mind is that and where we're seeing
this is fake scams for Airbnb or VRBO, and they've gotten pretty
good like literally, they'll copy the pictures from a real
site, create a fake site, get you to enter your payment
information and then you think you've booked because you it
looked like Airbnb or VRBO, and then all of a sudden, you're not
getting the confirmation you expected or it's not showing up
in your Airbnb app.
So really, before you click on any of these, especially ones
that you see posted on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok.
Go to the Airbnb or the VRBO site and search it.
You can also take that image and do a reverse image search in
Google to see if you really are on the right site and if those
rates really are the right rates and if you really are on the
right site.
So you really have to take that extra bit of time.
The other red flags that you can watch out for is are they
asking you to pay with a gift card or something like that?
They certainly don't want you to pay for a credit card with a
credit card, because as soon as you find fraud, you call your
credit card company and you dispute it and let them know
what happened.
They'll send you a new card and refund your money.
What happened?
They'll send you a new card and refund your money.
So anytime they're asking you to pay with something other than
your credit card, that's definitely a red flag, because
the reputable sites expect you to pay with the credit card.
So take an extra 60 seconds and a gut check and just make sure
that it is what it is that you're booking, because you
don't want to have something happen.
The FTC, which tracks this kind of fraud, says these types of
scams really peak between now and July.
So protect yourself.
Pay attention, tell those you love.
Protect yourself, pay attention , tell those you love,
especially if you are around older people.
A lot of times they're not as adept at picking up that.
Hey, that doesn't look like Airbnb or something like that.
Help them out, offer to check it out if they find something
they think they like and they're going to book it, because you
can book some wonderful vacations.
We've used VRBO, even internationally, and had
wonderful success.
But you definitely need to make sure that you're on the right
site and you're definitely using a credit card.
I would not even use a debit card to book vacations like this
, so I hope you are looking forward to a wonderful vacation
this summer.
This has been another episode of Better Financial Health in 15
Minutes or Less.