Travel Booking Scam

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 26 May 2013 Posts: 1

Any info on the perps behind this one?

From: Princess Ada <[email protected]>
To: xxxxxx.com
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 12:22 PM
Subject: booking....

Greetings,

We want to book for Diving trip , for our oncoming
Vacation.
Date 10th August to 20th August 2013, with 2 dives per day.

We are six in number.All divers with Certification Card, as well as log book.

Let me know the rate and total cost for six persons for 10 days diving with all equipment.

Mode of payment: Credit card

I await to hear from you soon

Kindest Regards
Princess Ada
Tel +447045742307

Mod edit to redact personal email as it leads back to real life information - JF

Posted: Mon May 27, 2013 12:22 am

This is a follow up to the PM I sent you earlier.
I google'd the phone number and got a few returns from others who got basically the same email you got, only it was tailored to their particular businesses. The MO is for them to send you a (stolen) credit card number and ask you to charge the card an amount well over the cost of your services. They then ask you to send the surplus amount to their "agent" via Western Union.
The chances of finding out who is behind this are remote. As best I could tell looking at IP addresses in scam emails with the same phone number, they are coming from Panama.

Posted: Mon May 27, 2013 12:35 am

I edited your post to remove your email as it reveals your real life information. We are very cautious about security here.

As Lakeside says, this is a very common credit card scam. It can play out in various ways, either overpaying and asking you to pay a supposed agent, or airline, or hotel, or whatever fake recipient. Or they will cancel and ask for a full refund -- by Western Union, not a credit issued to their card, which is a stolen number anyway.

One important rule of thumb to bear in mind with any inquiry like this: if the person deliberately overpays, or requests money by Western Union, it is a scam. Period. No question.

Please read this description at our sister site, scamwarners.com, for a more detailed explanation.