Tania and her family were left without a place to stay in Egypt after a scammer impersonating their luxury holiday provider cancelled their £6,300 holiday booking
A family claimed they were swindled out of hundreds of pounds – and left without accommodation – by a scammer, ruining their luxury Egyptian getaway.
Tania Rowan, from Salford, paid £6,300 for her week-long stay alongside five members of her family at Charmillion Club Resort which she got through package holiday provider On the Beach. They were set to check in on August 5 and return to the UK on August 12, but the day before they were due to fly alarms were raised when Tanya couldn’t log into her On the Beach account.
Tania, 51, found a number on Google she presumed to be On the Sun and spoke to a person she thought was a rep for the company. But during the call, the person – a fraudster – on the other end of the line persuaded the mum she was £768 short and then demanded an extra £400 once that amount had been paid.
After ending the call, Tania received an email from On the Beach stating that a request to cancel the booking had been made and she had 24 hours to manually override the request. However, because the scam call had left her feeling “vulnerable”, she was uncertain if the message was genuine and decided to ignore it.
“I do think that email was legit, but I’m vulnerable then. Your head is all over, you’re flying out the day after, you’ve got kids to worry about,” she told Manchester Evening News.
“Surely there should have been another way to get in touch with me?”
Tania says her TUI flight to Egypt was unaffected, so she flew to Egypt with her family, a total of 14 people, and arrived at the resort.
Upon arrival, hotel staff informed Tania that On the Beach had cancelled the booking. Six members of the group were left without rooms including Tania, her husband Mark, 53, their friend and three children.
“In a nutshell they said, here’s the street, deal with it with On the Beach,” said Mark. “We tried to get in touch with On the Beach for the whole week, no reply.”
The family said they made multiple attempts to contact On the Beach but could not get through, so were forced to scramble for last-minute accommodation 20 minutes away from the resort.
“We found accommodation at the cost of another £450 each. We went from all-inclusive five-star hotel to a self-catering with no English people at all,” Mark said.
The family claims that On the Beach has yet to refund the £6,300 spent on the trip which took months to save for after a challenging few years for the family.
“Someone’s got my money, I paid £6,300 for this holiday. I paid for a service, for food and accommodation that we’ve not had,” Tania said.
A spokesperson for On the Beach responded: “We’re sorry to hear about Tania’s experience. Tania unfortunately fell victim to a scammer impersonating On the Beach and was persuaded to share security and personal information.
“We’ve been in contact with Tania and advised how to report the incident to her bank. Unfortunately, scammers impersonating well-known businesses are increasingly common.
“We urge customers to never share account security information with anyone and to only manage their booking through their secure On the Beach account.”