Free Holiday Scam

Nicole was on the internet one day, using her home computer. A pop-up appeared on her screen telling her that she had won a holiday to the Bahamas, but that to retrieve her prize she would have to call the number listed within 3 minutes. Nicole immediately called the number. A female voice with an American accent answered the call and told Nicole in an excited voice that she’d won the holiday.

‘The woman who answered the phone spoke very quickly and I was quite excited about the prospect of a holiday. When she asked me if I accepted the holiday, I immediately said “yes”. I was very excited and my adrenaline was right up’, Nicole explained.

The woman mentioned some figures that didn’t seem to have any connection to the holiday prize, and asked Nicole for her credit card details. It wasn’t until she asked for these details that Nicole began to suspect that she had not ‘won’ the entire holiday. After the woman had taken Nicole’s credit card details, she told Nicole that she was ‘locked in’ to buying the holiday.

Nicole panicked when she heard the term ‘locked in’ as she and her husband are both students living on Austudy. Once she realised that part of the holiday cost had been charged to her credit card, Nicole asked to withdraw but the woman on the phone refused. Eventually, Nicole spoke to a ‘manager’ who also refused to let Nicole out of the holiday.

Nicole said that by this stage ‘I was almost crying and I was very upset’. Nicole was told that  if she didn’t calm down they wouldn’t help her at all. After this, the ‘manager’ said ‘well, we’ll take the amount you have to pay down from $680 to $350 (US) and you can try and sell the holiday to someone else.’ 

The manager also told Nicole that she had to listen to a recording of the company’s terms and conditions and confirm that she understood and agreed to them. Nicole was still upset and asked if she could wait until her husband was there before she listened or agreed to anything. However, the manager told Nicole that if she hung up the phone, she would have to pay $1,000 (US) and she would be charged double if she made a complaint. Nicole had to listen to the recorded terms and conditions. ‘I agreed to the terms and conditions even though I was too upset to understand what they were really saying.’
 
The company selling the holiday used high pressure tactics to force Nicole into a transaction she didn’t really understand. Nicole said that ‘it was abuse, full tilt abuse. They were so rude to me’.

After Nicole got off the phone with the holiday people, she contacted her bank and cancelled her credit card and the bank said they would do their best to get the money back.

‘My husband spent hours on the internet looking for these people and trying to contact them. Eventually we made contact and the person from the company was extremely apologetic and promised a full refund’, Nicole said. However, the next day when they contacted Nicole again, they gave her a false telephone number.

Even though Nicole’s bank managed to get her money back, this scam caused Nicole and her husband a lot of hassle and worry.

Other types of holiday prize scams

• You receive a call with an automated message declaring that you have won a prize. In order to claim your prize, you need to press 9 and enter your credit card information to pay a small administration fee. Either you are charged an amount equivalent to the actual cost of the holiday or your credit card detail is stolen to be used fraudulently to purchase goods and services.

• You receive a call with an automated message declaring that you have won a prize. In order to claim your prize, you need to call a telephone number. Unknowing to you, the telephone number (usually starting with 0055 or 1900) is a premium charge telephone number that often costs more than $5 per minute. When you call the number, you will often hear long-winded automated messages. The intent is to maximise the call time to charge you more on the phone charges.