Cannes con: the accommodation scam that caught me out – and how to avoid it 

This content is paid for by Lloyds Bank.

By Dominic Wells

You’d think I’d know better. As a journalist and editor, I am used to questioning my sources. I am internet-savvy. I’ve also freelanced as a travel writer, used to booking multiple trips.

Even so, I fell prey to an accommodation scam when booking five nights to attend the Cannes Film Festival a few years back. For £718, to be precise.

Oh, I’m wary of “too good to be true” offers. That’s what was cunning about this one. Renting during the festival is expensive, but even so this was not cheap. It was, however, the only place that didn’t mean walking half an hour to reach the Croisette. So I was hooked.

Dominic says it can be easy to let your guard down when you see a ‘great’ deal

In fact I was so hooked that I ignored the warning signs. I emailed the apparent owner in French – and she replied in English, explaining her French was not good. Her name was “Hélène”. She told me to look out for an email with payment instructions, supposedly from the website, which specified that I should pay by bank transfer. A flag so red it could attract every bull for miles.

But I was busy, and relieved to have found somewhere at the last minute. It was only the next morning that I listened to the alarm bells and started researching more… and discovered, by doing a reverse image search, that the interior pics had been lifted from the listing for a different flat. 

What’s more, when I studied the small print on the website itself, it warned not to pay by bank transfer. So the instruction email I was sent had been faked.

All too late! I reported this to Action Fraud, and to my bank, but the money had already been transferred by Faster Payments. I never got it back.

So now I’m a statistic. According to Action Fraud, the UK’s scam reporting centre, holiday fraud cost Britons £15 million in the 2022/2023 financial year – with the average loss per victim being £2,372. 

Lloyds Bank’s own research bears this out: cases of holiday fraud reported to the bank rose by a third in the year leading up to March 2022, with the most costly being booking false flights – at £2,995 on average.

Liz Ziegler, fraud prevention director at Lloyds Bank, says: “Scammers are ready to cash in on any last-minute surge in bookings, so it’s vital that consumers know how to stay safe. Book directly with trusted sites or travel agents, avoid following links on social media and always pay by card for the greatest protection. Remember, if it looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is.”

Being conned into booking accommodation or flights that don’t exist is not the only type of holiday fraud. Another one to watch out for is emails or phone calls purporting to be from a travel company or airline that has just suffered significant cancellations, or has gone bankrupt, offering urgent refunds – “urgent” being another red flag. 

It’s often scammers who try to pressure you into making a quick decision before you have had a chance to think it through.

Another is the free flights scam – where a promotion circulates on social media, encouraging users to click the link to access free flights. Could this ever be true? Very unlikely, but possible. 

But if so, the airline itself would be making a big noise about it. Do your research, check whether there is a press release on the airline’s official site or see if anyone has exposed it as a scam online.

It’s very tempting, under the pressure to chase the best possible price for that all-important holiday, to let your guard down when you finally find a deal that’s just a little too good to be true. I know. I’ve done it. But the money you think you’re saving could cost you a whole lot more.

For useful guidance on how to protect yourself from the latest scams, search: Lloyds Bank Fraud Hub

This content is paid for by Lloyds Bank.