Sophisticated tricks are flourishing on social networks
By typing in the phrase “beautiful and cheap homestay in Da Lat” or “Moc Chau hotel with tea hill view”, users can easily see dozens of fan pages with eye-catching images, neat content and attractive service commitments. However, many of them are “traps” set up for the purpose of fraud.
On many Facebook travel groups, there have been posts warning about being scammed of deposit money, transferring money to hold a room but then being unable to contact the fanpage or arriving at the place to discover that there is no homestay as advertised.
Articles sharing tourists' experiences of being scammed when booking rooms continuously appear in groups on social networks.
The websites of the police in many provinces and cities have also posted warnings about the situation where many victims lost their deposits when booking rooms at resorts, hotels, and homestays through fanpages or websites of unknown origin.
The subject's modus operandi is as follows: create a fanpage with the same name, image and content as reputable accommodation establishments. Post attractive images, offer lower prices than the market to attract. Some also use automatic response chatbots, fake bookings with brand logos to create a sense of professionalism, causing many people to subjectively not verify carefully. Ask customers to transfer a deposit in advance, then cannot be contacted or block communication.
"Fake pages have more interactions than real pages" - The suffering of real people
Nguyen Ngoc Anh, manager of Kumo Chan Hotel in Moc Chau, said that the hotel also discovered the fake page about 6 months ago. It is worth mentioning that this fake fanpage has even more likes and interactions than the official page, thanks to heavy investment in advertising with attractive promotional content and unreasonably low prices.
The fake page has more likes than the real page, confusing many people.
“Customers who are scammed are usually those who travel less, have little experience and do not research thoroughly. The fake pages provide enthusiastic advice and preferential prices. Customers transfer money to reserve a room through their personal account as instructed, but only realize they have been scammed when they arrive. Some people lose a few hundred thousand, but there are also cases where the loss is more than ten million dong,” Anh shared.
Mr. Phan Thanh Tung, Sales Director of voco Quang Binh Resort, said that up to now, the resort has received and supported about 7 cases of guests being scammed through fake pages. A similar situation also occurred in Tam Dao town, Vinh Phuc. Duong Kim Quy, receptionist at 90s Homestay, said that the homestay had detected a number of fake pages since last year and posted warnings with comparison images, but many guests were still scammed, especially during the recent April 30 holiday. Many people arrived to discover that they had booked the wrong page, or had transferred money to their personal accounts and then had their communication blocked. "Some people lost tens of millions of dong when they fell into the trap of an erroneous transfer, then continued to transfer money a second or third time to the fake page when they were promised to return the previously erroneous amount," Quy shared.
Tourist hotspots are full of "traps"
The fake fanpage situation is said to have appeared in the past 1-2 years, but has especially exploded in the past year, coinciding with the rapid increase in domestic tourism demand. Famous destinations such as Sapa, Ta Xua, Da Lat, Tam Dao, Moc Chau, Ninh Binh, Da Nang, Hue, Khanh Hoa, Vung Tau... have become frequent "targets" of scammers.
Hotels in hot tourist destinations become targets for fake pages
Not only Kumo Chan or 90s Homestay, hotels such as EDEN HUE, Dom Dom House Da Lat, Mountain Lodge Hotel Mang Den, AN Retreats Ninh Binh... have also warned on social networks with images comparing real pages and fake pages. Notably, in many cases, fake pages have higher interactions, comments and likes thanks to strong advertising, eye-catching content and professional conversations. Even when detected and reported by establishments, these pages even use many fake accounts to delete or overwrite negative reviews, making customers not pay attention.
Huynh Minh Trong, a tour guide on Phu Quy Island, said he has also encountered many cases of his customers being scammed while traveling here during the current peak season. The victims shared that they accidentally accessed these pages through advertising posts or when searching for accommodation for their trip. With unusually low prices and quick booking processes, they transferred money without thinking about the risk of being scammed.
Fake booking page information sent to customers is as professional as the real page.
Users lose money, businesses lose reputation
According to Nguyen Canh Linh, representative of Top Ten Travel, the damage caused by fake pages does not stop at financial. For many tourists, losing their deposit means losing their entire trip, having to scramble to find new accommodation or even cancel their plans. More seriously, the reputation of real businesses is also affected.
Voco Quang Binh Resort's Sales Director, Phan Thanh Tung, said the widespread fake pages have seriously affected the reputation of accommodation service businesses, causing customers to lose trust and be misunderstood as lacking transparency or poor service quality.
Homestays and hotels are forced to spend more time explaining to guests, posting warnings regularly, and even reporting to Facebook many times, but still cannot completely handle fake pages.
voco Quang Binh Resort, part of the IHG group, also warned tourists when making money transfers.
“Sadly, some of the deceived customers turned around and gave the real fanpage a 1-star rating, making it difficult for us to assert our reputation,” added Ngoc Anh, manager of Kumo Chan Hotel.
Representatives of companies and businesses said that if this situation continues, it will increasingly damage the image of Vietnam's tourism industry in the eyes of domestic tourists and international friends.
Legal loopholes and responsibilities from social networking platforms
Although online fraud is illegal, the current handling of it has not kept up with the developments of this new type of fraud. The subjects often use virtual information and fake accounts, making the investigation difficult.
As someone with experience in communications, Mr. Linh believes that platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram... need to strengthen the criteria for verifying fanpages that provide services, and at the same time create a mechanism to receive and process fake reports faster. Many fake pages still exist despite being reported, causing consumers to continue to fall into traps.
The fake page even has a blue tick from Facebook.
In the age of digital travel, every booking click requires vigilance. Although the tourism market is recovering positively, if left unchecked, fraud and scams will seriously affect consumer confidence and the image of the tourism industry in general.
From a business perspective, Mr. Phan Thanh Tung recommends that customers should verify the reliability of hotels and homestays based on the email address of the accommodation facility, which is usually the business's own email address (for voco Quang Binh Resort, the address is igh.com). Large resorts often do not accept transfers and reservations via Facebook, but make them through the facility's official website. From a personal perspective, Nguyen Ngoc Anh said: "When booking a room, don't just look at the number of likes or pictures on the fanpage. What you need to be wary of are the unbelievable price incentives embedded in the advertisements. That is often an unusual sign."
On the website, the police agency recommends that customers absolutely do not transfer deposits if the information has not been verified. Always check the authenticity of the fanpage through the "Page Transparency" section in the introduction section; Check the fanpage's name change history (repeated name changes are a suspicious sign); Check the administrator position (fake pages are mostly run by people in Cambodia or abroad).
Hotels post warnings and instructions for tourists to verify their reputation through information on their pages.
Representatives of hotels, travel agencies and tour guides advise tourists: Compare hotel and homestay information on other platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, especially Google Maps - where most phone numbers have been verified by the owner and the reviews are real. Before transferring money, customers can post questions about reputation in groups or contact local tour guides for further verification. Tourists can also book rooms through booking apps, where hotels and homestays have been directly verified by the party.
In addition to waiting for a clear legal corridor and an effective protection system from social networking platforms, tourists should equip themselves with information checking skills, be alert to "unbelievable" offers and always verify the origin of the fanpage before placing their trust.
