A holiday should be all about unwinding by replacing all stress with serenity and relaxation. Unfortunately, scammers in the hotel sector are there to fool you even before leaving home.
Recommendations friends, relatives and colleagues are the best way to go when choosing a place to stay. But what if you do not know anyone who has been to your intended destination? You look online, browsing sites such as TripAdvisor, which presents itself as "the world's largest travel site" with "200 million impartial traveler reviews."
Most TripAdvisor reviews are authentic, but many are biased or even false. If a hotel manager or owner wants a positive review online, they simply write themselves or their friends are some. they seem suspicious when a reviewer has only a solitary examination.
so if you want an experienced examiner to provide a ringing endorsement of your hotel, you just head over to a site called Fiverr, where people offer all kinds of services for only 5 US $. you join an e-mail address and start hiring people to write reviews. Or, more accurately, hire them to post content you have written. If your hotel has a page, you can buy thousands of Likes and simple exams.
Curious how Fiverr worked, I asked advice on how to get TripAdvisor positive reviews for the hotel from a friend. In a few hours I had 21 responses from people offering to post false comments and 'likes'.
"I am ready to write and publish 10 positive reviews TripAdvisor for your hotel in Indonesia. I have multiple TripAdvisor accounts with good quality, with different IP addresses," said a dealer.
another seller said she was ready to write false reviews 5 stars TripAdvisor its "Level 4 Contributor account."
If you're too cheap to pay US $ 5 and prefer Indonesian exam, then just go online giant is Kaskus, where you can find examiners offering their services for as little as Rp.5,000.
the result is, beware of criticism too expansive. on the other hand, some companies hire people to write and post negative reviews about their competitors. This occurs in many industries , aviation in restaurants.
Once, I received a job offer that went like: "We need an avid er, er, skilled in writing, available to work at home for about two hours a day, five days a week, from Rp.5 million a month. "The job was to create a negative social media content on a particular company.
A friend who owns a restaurant in Jakarta was visited by a man who offered to provide positive results and pictures in a food magazine in return for a payment Rp.5 million. He implied that the failure to provide a payment would result in a negative list.
Going Nowhere
If you are planning a holiday, make sure to book directly with a reputable hotel. Beware of online travel agents offering packages that seem too good to be true. Even reasonable package tours to price may be a scam.
a woman named Sarah Jihan managed about defrauding 120 people who had booked a holiday in Japan. She started a thread on Kaskus in March 2015, offering a group vacation package Japan on April 5-11, 2016, (seven days and six nights) for Rp.12.5 million, which could be paid in monthly installments until February 2016.
A week before departure, its customers had not received their tickets. Using a group, they asked Sarah for an explanation. She reassured them that partner, Gina, was handling the tickets. Then, on April 1st, Sarah posted a message on Kaskus claiming she had to cancel the trip due to a person to buy tickets had fled with the money. "Sorry, I have not been able to contact you directly because I am still a big shock," she wrote. She said she had reported the matter to police and later individual repayments. customers were willing to believe her until she suddenly removed their group and has also ceased all communication via the path, , Instagram and telephone. Only his Kaskus messages remain.
dozens of victims reported April 6 Sarah to the police. It appeared she had pulled the same scam last year and was detained for four days until it is able to issue repayments - with money recently took people who had booked holidays for 2016. She had allegedly told the first set of victims not to make critical online messages if they wanted to receive refunds
one of the latest victims said Sarah had organized a meeting with a client to inspire confidence in its business travel online. But when they began to apply for tickets of evidence and hotels, she could not show them anything.
Sarah now facing fraud charges online. The case involved alleged his sister, a television actress named Shirin Safira. Reports said some of the funds of the victims had been deposited in an account held by Shirin.
Scamming about 120 would-be tourists is small fry compared to the diversion conducted by government officials and companies involved in sending Muslims on the annual pilgrimage haj in Saudi Arabia. The former Minister of Religious Affairs Suryadharma Ali was sentenced in January to six years in prison for embezzling billions of rupees in haj funds from 2010 to 2013.
More recently, operators PT Sahabat Sukses Indonesia, a travel agency that is charged from Rp.25 million to Rp.35 million for minor pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia was reported to the police because he allegedly failed to honor commitments to customers .
One of the greatest of all Indonesia travel scams is when the country's legislators are free holidays abroad under the absurd claim that they are "comparative studies". These legislators would be better to use public funds to address problems in their own countries, rather than wasting time and money abroad. Unfortunately, some local schools have taken a leaf out of the book of the Legislature by sending students on excursions "comparative study" abroad at inflated prices massively.
Thus, when considering your next vacation, do your research first to ensure that you get value for money. And if you are considering any form of comparative study, spend your own money.