Make sure to verify reviews and protect your payment before you book a trip this B.C. Day long weekend. That’s advice from the Better Business Bureau, as travel-related scams have risen in recent years.
Neesha Hothi with the BBB serving Mainland British Columbia says, whether booking a campsite or cabin, people should do their research ahead of time.
“When you look at reviews, think about where they’re coming from. Is it a paid review? Is it on their own site? You want to go to a third-party validator and see what other people are saying,” Hothi advised.
She says scams happen more often than you might think.
“We do a top 10 riskiest scams report every year, and last year [travel-related] was number seven on the list, and it’s gone up from number eight the year before.”
She says standards of design quality can be a strong indicator of a legitimately-made website.
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“Is the domain name a little bit off? Is it misspelled? Are there extra dots and numbers in the email? Is the logo a little bit fuzzy? Does it look like it was just set up?”
Most importantly, Hothi reminded travellers to double check that they’re only making online payments through secure, encrypted sites, indicated by HTTPS in the URL — as opposed to HTTP only.
Reviews and complaints vetted by the Better Business Bureau can be seen on its website.
