Families duped by phantom villas scam

FAKE travel websites are duping Google into thinking they are genuine so they can target almost 6,000 Britons a year with phantom holidays.

There has been “an explosion” in bogus travel websites that steal photographs of luxury accommodation and pass them off to unsuspecting holidaymakers, according to the ITV investigative programme Tonight, which found more than 10 fake companies using around 10,000 stolen images.

Legitimate companies told reporters they are regularly finding tourists crying outside their villas upon realising that they have been conned. One man, who was scammed out of £1,200, said an airline desk worker told him the same thing had happened to 15 families in the previous day alone.

Nick Cooper, owner of the website Villa Plus, said: “These things used to happen every few years, [but] there’s been an explosion of these websites.”

There were 5,826 cases of holiday booking fraud reported to Action Fraud in 2016, which was 20 per cent up on the 2015 figure. In total, holidaymakers lost £7.2million to scammers.

Google said: “We do not allow fraudulent or misrepresentative sites. If we discover sites that are breaking this policy, we quickly take appropriate action.”