Expedia Travel Scam Reported In South Louisiana

We have all gotten very comfortable in making big plans on the Internet. I know at our house we book a lot of travel adventures using the site Expedia. If you use Expedia or know someone who does be warned there is a scam that's going around and the bad guys not only want to mess up your trip, they want to take all your spending money too.

Here's how it works.

The beauty of using Expedia is the flexibility it allows the user to have when changing travel plans. The bad guys know this, that's why they set up very realistic looking fake sites that come up on a Google Search for Expedia Contact Information.

The site you open will look official. It will have telephone numbers and web addresses and emails listed. None of those are linked to Expedia. So, when you contact the fake travel counselors and inquire about changing your travel plans you're told the "change website function is down". However, the scammers say you can make the changes and pay for them using gift cards.

Once you get a gift card and give the scammer the details on that gift card your money is gone. Not only is your money gone, but your travel plans also haven't been changed and now you're out of money and out of luck.

The Better Business Bureau says you should always look for the secure padlock symbol at the top of the website and trust me as someone who has traveled around the world using Expedia, they have never and I repeat never asked me to get a gift card. Let the gift card be your red flag to hang up, log out, and run away. Oh and contact law enforcement and the Better Business Bureau.