The travel sector is a growing industry of modern times. Although covid limited the travelling activities, this year it is expected to boom. People waited for one year so that they can travel, now the load 2020 is in 2021. More travellers and tourists are supposed to travel and avail travel services this year. The travelling industry is fully digitized now from online hotel reservation to online cab services. Now customers can book a cab from their phones, they don’t have to stand on roads for cab booking. Like this hotel reservation is easier than ever, hotels provide ease of booking room form homes along with pictures and video of the hotels. Customers can choose their desired room and seat of the airline easily. The digitization has fastened the business process in the travelling industry. The management of airline passengers and hotel customers is more fast and steady. This also increases the revenue in hotel and airline businesses by cutting time and resources on manual management.

Travel Frauds in 2021

Like other industries, the travel industry is a potential target of scams and frauds. Scammers now use advanced ways of scamming to get financial benefits. According to the reports of ScamWatch, travel prize scams cost $360151 in the travelling industry. Airline business alone lost $4.8 billion annually due to credit card scams. The reasons why travel frauds are crucial to your business needs are listed below

Chargebacks:

Chargebacks are processed when debit/credit cardholders file a dispute over the unauthorized use of his card. The merchant will have to pay back the money in case of a successful chargeback. The chargeback may be issued to the merchant or the credit card provider company. A chargeback is sometimes considered as a refund because of the return of money. According to the reports of Chargeback, “merchants lost 11.2 billion in 2015 due to chargebacks”. 

Airline Travelling

Fraudsters use stolen debit/credit cards to book airline tickets online. After the payment and service are done the airline comes to know that they have been scammed. The genuine customers can issue chargebacks to the airline for not verifying the transaction. Chargebacks can cost in millions to a business. Due to the large number of chargebacks an airline can lose its reputation among customers. 

Hotel Accommodation 

The airline industry is also affected by chargebacks issued by credit cardholders. Scammers book rooms through stolen debit/credit cards and enjoy the services of hotels. When the genuine customer comes to know about the scam, he can file a chargeback to the hotel.

Identity Theft Fraud

Identity thefts and accounts takeover are the advanced world cybercrimes that are degrading the reputation of the online platform. Cybercriminals use illegal practice like phishing to steal someone’s identity. After gaining the personal data of the online user cybercriminals impersonate the actual user for some illegitimate exercise like a money transfer from accounts or opening new accounts online. Scammers use fake identities for booking online services in the travelling industry. Through fake identities, scammers enjoy the service without paying a single penny to the service provider.

Fake Passport Scam

Some people are banned from travelling by law enforcement agencies over money laundering related activities. Law enforcement agencies have issued blacklists and sanction lists against Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs). Those people with high-risk blacklists can’t travel abroad until their name is in those lists. Because of involving money laundering and terror financing activities, these PEPs are a potential risk for airports and airline businesses.

Criminals use fake or forged passports to travel abroad bypassing manual verification at airports. To combat this illegal travelling of PEPs, airports need to employ a passport scanner that can check the authenticity of passports of passengers onboarding. The passport scanner will verify the identity of the passenger through his passport and matches the image on the passport with a live image of the passenger. This will decrease the illegal travelling of people across borders and also reduce the amount of money laundering.

Summing it Up

All the above problems can be countered by having Identity Verification service for onboarding customers. Customers have to verify themselves before any online operation like booking a ticket of an airline or reservation of the hotel rooms. The verification of onboarding will ensure the legitimate reservation and kill the chances of identity theft and accounts takeover. By having IDV services businesses will have a more trustworthy online environment and better customer experience.